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Question of Love 

a Stovu of Stoitjerlanfi 


TRANSLATED BY ANNIE R. RAMSEY 
FROM THE FRENCH OF 


3 



BOSTON 

ROBERTS BROTHERS 
1891 






Copyright, 1891, 

By Roberts Brothers, 


SSniijersitg ^rcss: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


CHAPTER I. 

T he night my story opens everything 
is going on as usual. The two old men 
are listening to Miss Celanie as she reads 
from the newspaper in her low, monotonous 
voice, whose very intonations are melancholy. 
The old, old grandfather’s face is of a waxen 
pallor, which is death-like as it shines out 
from the silky whiteness of his beard. His 
companion has a withered, wrinkled face, close 
shaven, and its fresh carnation tints have 
changed long since to the purplish shades on 
last winter’s apples. 

The grandfather sits with closed eyes, in 
order to hear better and also to save them, 
his long thin hands, with their nails like pol- 
ished ivory, extended on the arms of his chair. 
He sits like a statue, but Cousin Clovis is 
always in motion, swinging his foot in its 
green slipper, or interlacing his fingers into 


6 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


all sorts of curious forms. It used to amuse 
Zoe to watch Cousin Clovis at this, for he 
could make a cradle, two men sawing wood, 
a little man in a well, and many other things, 
which, perched on his knee, she tried to imi- 
tate, working her soft little hands, trying to 
follow the bony old fingers which crossed 
and uncrossed so briskly. But this was when 
she was little, for Grandpa and Cousin Clovis 
were as old then as now. This evening Zoe 
sat thinking of the strange quiet of these two 
lives, between which her own had sprung up 
so quickly, like a blade of grass between two 
stones. This grandfather, the father of her 
own grandfather, was eighty years old when 
Zoe was born. He had not changed since, 
for when one is so very old he changes no 
more. So Zoe, who had always seen the 
same wrinkles on his face, the same tremu- 
lous smile creasing the rosy cheeks of Cousin 
Clovis, the two easy-chairs in the same place, 
the same habits and customs throughout the 
house, looked upon the two old men as some- 
thing immutable, without beginning or end. 
They had lived so long that it never occurred 
to her that they could do anything else. She 
thought of them as she sat leaning her cheek 
on her hand ; and then her eyes wandered to 
Miss Celanie, whose high forehead, lit up by 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


7 


the lamp, is framed in by straight bands of 
hair. These bands of hair, by the way, have 
a greenish tint in them, such as certain blonde 
heads acquire when they whiten. Zoe re- 
membered with shame the day when she inno- 
cently asked her aunt why her hair was green. 

Even the lamp is old, — its high stand in 
the form of an Egyptian obelisk, and all cov- 
ered with hieroglyphics of black on a white 
ground, — and belongs to that long ago time 
of which the grandfather always speaks, and 
which Zoe thinks of as a misty country, with 
vague silhouettes of battles floating in the air; 
for grandfather knew all the battles, and dis- 
cusses them yet with Cousin Clovis, showing 
with pencil and paper just the faults of strat- 
egy by which the Emperor lost Leipsic. 

Absorbed, Zoe no longer listened to the 
reading, but the melancholy voice made a 
sombre background to her revery. Why had 
Flora been baptized by that name? Was it 
because her godmother had never dreamed 
she would some day be an old servant, sixty 
years old, with her withered face brown and 
hard as a nut, and her hands — ah! the poor 
blackened hands ! 

Zoe took up her work, which had fallen to 
her knees, and looked at her own hands, so 
small, so slender, so transparently white, with 


8 


A QUESTION OF LOVE, 


delicate touches of rose-color, like a flower. 
Miss Celanie had once said to her, “ You 
inherit your hands from me. Mine were just 
like them at your age.” As she thought of 
this, Zoe felt so sad that she had a sudden 
wish to weep, without knowing why. She 
bent her head over her work that Flora might 
not see her eyes fill with tears; for Flora 
watched her incessantly, and made her account 
for everything. 

Suddenly a horse’s ringing trot is heard 
outside, and the crunch of the gravel under a 
wheel which turned the corner of the house 
and grazed against the stone gate-post. 

“What’s that?” said Clovis, interrupting 
the reading. 

The grandfather opened his eyes with a 
gesture of impatience. “That? What? I 
hear nothing. You are always imagining 
that you hear noises, Clovis.” 

“ It is Voumard’s wagon just back,” said 
Flora, in her strong, coarse voice, like that 
of a drill-sergeant commanding his men. “ I 
hear them unharnessing.” 

“You hear, you hear,” said the old man. 

“ I hear also ; I am not deaf. Is it Vou- 
mard’s wagon, Celanie?” 

His daughter raised her head to listen. “I 
think so, father,” she replied absently. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 9 

Very well, go on with the reading. Are 
there no obituaries in the paper this evening?” 

Yes, but I am not up to them yet.” 

Very good, but skip the next. Read me 
the obituaries ; they interest me.” 

How strange ! This old man, ninety-eight 
years of age, bent, decrepit, with failing sight 
and weakened hearing, his knees so feeble that 
they knocked together, his hands deprived 
of power, was intensely interested in the 
deaths of his neighbors, — indeed was inter- 
ested in little else. He had seen so many 
die around him, so many lights had gone 
out while his endured, that he had taken ref- 
uge in a strange, half-unconscious feeling of 
security, which perhaps would have formu- 
lated itself thus : ‘‘ Many others are yet to go 
before me.” But it never was put into words, 
and remained a vague, floating idea, like a 
shrouding cloud before the entrance to the 
sombre country. When younger men were 
taken, — fathers of families, bread-winners, 
in the flower of their years, — when a youth 
or maiden was snatched away, the heart 
of the old man — his poor hardened heart, 
in which for ages past the divine spring 
of sympathy had ceased to flow — thrilled 
with a throb of inexpressible satisfaction, of 
triumph even. 


10 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


Perhaps it had lived too long, this heart of 
the nonagenarian. Its noblest fibres were 
worn out or hardened, just as the delicate 
fibres of the eye wear out, and the muscles 
of the limbs stiffen ; the egotistic desires, 
the fierce instincts of self-preservation, alone 
survived. 

“ We must have been made of good stuff, 
Clovis,” the old man said ; “ men like us are 
not made now. Look at the young people ; 
how they fade. But we are still left. You 
are not too robust, however, — you will never 
reach my age, my poor fellow.” 

“ As God wills,” said the other, with 
emphasis. 

“ We all live as long as God wills,” said 
Flora in her most military voice. “ The im- 
portant thing is to live well.” 

But the old man was in no mood for ed- 
ifying remarks. “ Good, good, — you shall 
preach on Sunday. Celanie, go on with the 
reading.” 

And Miss Celanie began the obituaries in 
exactly the same tone in which she had read 
the advertisements, and the items of news or 
politics, her slow studied pronunciation sug- 
gesting an old governess. 

The grandfather resumed his unchanging 
attitude, and closed his eyes again. Cousin 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. II 

Clovis, leaning back in his chair and crossing 
his legs, watched with amusement the shadow 
of his foot as it waved to and fro on the wall, 
where a brilliantly lighted space was cross- 
barred by the shadow of a chair-back. This 
he fancied looked like a prison window, and 
the shadow made his foot, if held in a cer- 
tain position, represent the prisoner’s head, 
which was first thrust forth and then quickly 
withdrawn. With a silent gesture and a roll 
of the eye, for he dared not interrupt the 
reading again. Cousin Clovis tried to draw 
Zoe’s attention to his sport. But the young 
girl shook her head and turned away, instead 
of smiling, as usual, at the childish play. A 
moment later, she rose hastily and without a 
sound glided from the room. She could 
stand no more. She was overcome by sad- 
ness, — she was so weary of the monotony. 

“ Here, father, is something I am sure you 
will like,” said Miss Celanie, as her eyes ran 
over a column; and with a movement which 
was a relic of the time when her hand was 
pretty, she smoothed her braids with the tips 
of her fingers, pushed a stray hair behind 
her ear, and, settling her glasses firmly, began 
to read. 

The article was about an official ovation 
tendered by a neighboring village to its oldest 


12 


A QUESTION OF LOVE, 


inhabitant, in celebration of the hundredth 
anniversary of his birth, to which they had 
hardly dared to hope he could live. By dint 
of infinite care and numberless precautions, 
he had, however, survived the sunset which 
closed his century of life. But he had nearly 
failed to see the dawn of another day because 
of the strain caused by a serenade, an oration, 
and the presentation of a fine silver dish en- 
graved with appropriate emblems. 

The grandfather was thoroughly awakened. 
He no longer sat with closed eyes, but, leaning ' 
forward, clutching both arms of his chair in 
his intense attention, he drank in each sylla- 
ble that Miss Celanie uttered. When she 
had finished, he said, irritably, “ Well, go on. 
What next? Why do you stop? ” 

“ That ’s all, father.” 

“That’s all? Just turn to the summary 
of news, and see how he is to-day. Poor 
Francis Dumont! I have not seen him in 
years; but I have often thought of him. I 
did not think h^ would last so long, — a 
thin small man like that, with a weak will. I 
knew him well when I was in business. Do 
you remember, Clovis, the day he came and 
proposed to me that I should go for him to 
Magdeburg? But no, you were only a slip 
of a boy then. How old were you, — three 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


3 


or four years? I was twenty-two. That 
was in ’14. Did you find anything more, 
Celanie? ” 

“ No, father, nothing more.” 

“ Poor Francis ! ” repeated the old man 
after some moments of silence, during which 
he had once more resumed his habitual atti- 
tude. “ He never had much of a head, and 
it does not astonish me that he was upset 
with all their speeches and ceremonies. Did 
he answer properly? Does it say whether he 
thanked them, Celanie?” 

“ No, father, there ’s no mention of it.” 

That 's it, then, — he lost his head. I 
can just see him stammering and stuttering. 
Poor Francis ! old age is dreadful when the 
powers go,” — and he straightened himself 
in his chair. 

Miss Celanie folded the paper, laid it on 
her basket, took off her glasses, then sat 
motionless, her hands crossed over her gray 
apron, her faded blue eyes lost in revery. 
Her father recalled her suddenly. ‘‘ Celanie, 
I don’t think that article really interested 
you.” Too passive to protest, she did not 
answer at all, and the old man added in a 
moment, “In two years it will be my turn; 
do you hear? — Isn’t it a fine thing, my 
daughter, to have a centenarian for a father ! 


14 A QUESTION OF LOVE: 

I must have my little celebration, too,” he 
went on persuasively. Then, as his thoughts 
returned to the flattering demonstration of 
which Dumont had been the recipient, he 
muttered, “ I wonder if they are thinking of 
doing as much for me? Do they even know 
my age? Clovis, are you sure every one 
knows my age?” 

It was Flora who answered, laying down 
her knitting: “The days of our years are 
threescore years and ten; and if by reason 
of strength they be fourscore years, yet is 
their strength labor and sorrow; for it is 
soon cut off, and we fly away. Ninetieth 
Psalm.” This said, she took up her knitting 
again, and Miss Celanie bowed her head 
reverently. 

“ Thanks, Flora, thanks,” said the old man, 
turning uneasily, “you are a good girl.” 

He felt impelled to propitiate her. When 
she rose like a threatening prophetess, and 
proclaimed the vanity of life and its near 
termination, she affected him most disagree- 
ably, and he always spoke to her with humil- 
ity, hoping to avert some baleful influence. 
Privately, he was much irritated ; and as 
soon as her back was turned, he scolded Miss 
Celanie for the liberties she allowed her old 
servant to take. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


5 


Cousin Clovis had softly gone out. His 
green slippers with their felt soles made no 
noise on the oaken floor, nor in the tiled cor- 
ridor under whose high ceiling a hundred 
echoes were lurking. A small lamp with a 
brilliant reflection, like a miniature sun, lit 
the lofty arches of this passage, which ought 
by all means to have led to a court or some 
mysterious postern, but which in reality, after 
running through the length of Ihe house, 
opened out on the slope which led to the 
barn door, and from here you could go across 
to the farmer’s house. The ground floor of 
the right wing turned to the northwest. 

A large low window, divided into three 
parts by ancient mullions of stone, fashioned 
into columns, opened upon a yard at the back 
only two or three feet abov^e the ground. A 
bright light shone from it, and illumined the 
recesses of the court and the broken tiles. In 
the deepest shadow which surrounded this 
brilliancy stood Zoe, — pressed close to the 
wall, her face hidden in her hands, and sob- 
bing as if her heart would break. Now and 
then she thrust her head forward, glanced 
into the lighted room, drew quickly back, 
and began to cry again, — always very softly, 
and smothering her sobs in her handker- 
chief, in mortal terror of being overheard. 


l6 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

Suddenly she gave a cry, for, just as she 
leaned forward, some one whose approach 
she had not heard came up behind and laid a 
hand on her shoulder. “What is it? Why 
are you crying, my poor little Zosette?” said 
the sympathetic voice of Cousin Clovis. 

“ Sh ! sh ! ” said Zoe ; “ don’t speak ! don’t 
speak ! ” 

“ I saw you crying, my dear,” said the 
good cousin, panting a little, for the impetu- 
ous child had dragged him back too quickly. 
“ You are in trouble? ” 

“ No, nothing is the matter,” she said, hang- 
ing her head. “Go in. Cousin, do go in; 
the night air is bad for you ; you will take 
cold.” 

If it had been lighter she would have seen 
Cousin Clovis’s eyes fill with tears; for old 
age is more easily touched than youth, and 
its wisdom is born of experience. 

“ I will go in if you wish, but on one con- 
dition, — that you tell your trouble to your 
aunt.” 

“ Never ! never ! ” and she began to knead 
her handkerchief into a hard little ball, which 
she applied nervously to her eyes. 

“ Suppose then, you tell it to me? ” 

“ I would willingly, if I knew what to say; 
but it is nothing, — nothing at all.” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


17 

She hung on his arm, and together they 
slowly climbed the grassy slope leading to 
the barn door, as if drawn to the feeble 
light of a lantern which had been forgotten 
there. 

“ Sit down here, it is sheltered, said Zoe,” 
pushing back the halves of the folding door, 
which yielded slightly, and formed a cosey 
nook above the dry floor of the barn. 

Cousin Clovis sat down on an old stump 
which was always kept there, and used to hold 
the doors wide open while the wagons were 
being driven in. 

“ All the same, you had better open your 
heart to your aunt,” said he, thoughtfully. 
“ Women, they say, understand these things, 
especially if they have gone through them.” 

“ Gone through them ; why. Cousin Clovis, 
is it like a book? ” 

“ No ; no, it’s not like a book nor anything 
in one,” he said, hastily. He did not know 
why he answered thus; and what did she 
mean by her strange question? “What were 
you looking at, that interested you so much, 
in the Voumards’ house?” Zoe did not 
answer. She sat in the doorway beside the 
lantern ; its light fell on the delicate outlines 
of her bodice, on her hands and slender 
white neck; but the little head was all in 


1 8 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

shadow as it was thrown back to lean against 
the door. “ How old are you, seventeen or 
eighteen? ” 

“ I am eighteen,” she answered, with a 
sorrowful little whimper. 

“ Exactly. Well, Zoe, we can’t stay here 
until morning; you must tell me at once why 
you were crying.” 

“ Dear cousin, I do assure you I don’t know 
myself. Sometimes it comes to me like that, 
and I have to run away. When Aunt is read- 
ing aloud, or Grandpa is telling a story, or 
when I look at the chairs and tables which 
are so very, very old, something seizes me 
here, crushes me, and I must cry, or I should 
die. I don’t know if you understand me,’’ 
she added, after this lucid explanation of her 
symptoms. 

“ Not too well,” said her kind cousin, “ un- 
less — In my young days, ladies called this, 
I think, the vapors.” 

“ Ah ! and what did they do when they had 
the vapors? ” 

“ Oh ! well, they were told to seek amuse- 
ment, ordered to the baths — You have no 
friends. That ’s not natural at your age.” 

At Zoe’s deep sigh, her cousin saw he had 
touched a tender point. “ Are there no girls 
in the neighborhood?” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


19 


“ Two or three, perhaps, but they are all 
rough peasants,” she said, with a pout of dis- 
dain. “ Those are not girls with whom I 
could be intimate. At school,” — she stopped 
at some sudden recollection, — “ I never told 
any one,” she went on bravely, laying both 
hands on his arm, and he was touched to feel 
the young creature turning to him in a pas- 
sion of confidence. “ I will tell you if you 
promise never to repeat it to any one.” 

“ I promise.” 

“ Well, at school I did so want to have a 
chum, — all the other girls had them ; but 
not one would have me, and one day I found 
out they had given me a nickname,” — her 
voice trembled with indignation, — “ they 
called me Nankeen, because of my dress. 
You must remember the dress Aunt Celanie 
made me out of hers, with birds and baskets 
all over a nankeen ground. They said I 
looked like a little old grandmother.” 

“What stupid girls!” cried Mr. Clovis, 
indignant too. “ Of course I remember the 
dress, and very pretty it was. Yes, a nan- 
keen ground ; in olden times it was the one 
color for brunettes, and you are a real bru- 
nette, — so what could have been better? We 
shall find you some friends, Zosette, don’t be 
afraid. We shall find some.” So saying, he 


20 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


rose slowly, for the evening air had stiffened 
his joints. 

“ We shall find some,” he repeated, as he 
went down the slope leaning heavily on his 
little cousin’s shoulder. 


CHAPTER II. 


E very morning the affairs of the house 
were regulated as follows. Flora rose 
first, made the coffee, swept the rooms on the 
ground floor and the entries, and then went up 
to Zoe to dress her hair. Ever since the days 
when — a tiny child, delicate and timid as a 
little bird — Zoe had come into this house- 
hold of old people, it had been understood 
that Flora should have charge of her body 
and Miss Celanie of her mind. The old ser- 
vant did not always respect this strict limi- 
tation, and frequently made incursions upon 
Miss Celanie’s domains, but at the same time 
would permit no interference with her own. 

While dressing Zoe’s hair, she inculcated 
various maxims. Zoe would have much 
preferred to dress her hair herself; as to 
the maxims, they often caused her strange 
perplexities. 

When Plora opened the door this morning, 
Zoe, who was standing before her little glass, 
a brush in her hands, turned quickly with a 
blush. 


22 


A QUESTION OF LOVE, 


“What are you doing?” cried the old 

servant. 

“ I am trying to arrange my hair, — you 
have done it in the one way for years.” 

“ You must first learn to comb it properly. 
What a state you have got it into ! no part 
in the middle, none on the side, nothing. 

Come along; sit down, and give me the 

brush.” 

Zoe yielded docilely, but with a sigh. 

How pretty she was in her dimity sacque 
of old-fashioned cut, trimmed with a wide 
round collar, above which her long and deli- 
cate neck rose like the stem of a flower ! Her 
wide open sleeves showed the slender pretty 
arms whose skin was so sensitive that it 
blushed like her cheeks, like her neck, at 
the least emotion. As a child Zoe had 
amused those around her by her strange 
power to blush down to her finger tips. 
Flora used to take her to her grandfather — 
sometimes even before strangers — in her 
low-necked and short-sleeved dress. “ Look 
at this child,” she would say, with a sign to 
the spectators. The confusion caused by 
the knowledge that she was being looked 
at, by the horror of knowing that she was 
going to blush, made Zoe sensible of a flush 
of heat passing over her, — over her little 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


23 


bare arms, over her rounded shoulders, that 
grew rosy under the lace ruchings by which 
they were outlined. At last, one day she 
revolted, had a violent fit of crying, and 
so put an end to these exhibitions. 

Under her gypsy-like hair, whose waves 
fell on all sides, — a strange contrast to her 
delicate blonde skin, — Zoe had a tiny face, 
and dark eyebrows, straight and even as if 
traced with a brush, but which could frown 
easily. Her eyes were not often noticed, 
for she kept them almost always lowered, 
perhaps from timidity, perhaps from indiffer- 
ence to things around her. 

If you wish,” said the old servant, un- 
bending, “ I will make you to-day braids of 
eight, — or the Marie Louise, — or the wheat- 
heads, — just to change.” 

“ No, — no, thank you. I hate those wide 
plaits, they look like basket-work.” 

“ As you like,” said Flora, vexed ; and she 
carefully arranged the abundant hair in little 
smooth divisions, separated by narrow lines 
of straight partings. When she had brushed 
the front bands, she made two heavy plaits 
of them, which she passed before the ears, 
framing in the cheeks, joined them to the 
plaits at the back, and rolled them together 
around a shell comb. It was thus that 


24 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


Flora’s mother had arranged her hair in 
1840. Under the plaits Zoe’s face had a 
quaint grace, a sedate air, which her eyes 
did not contradict. At the school she had 
been much teased on the subject of these 
plaits, but she clung to the belief that since 
then this fashion had come in again. Flora, 
among other maxims, had told her that one 
should never change a becoming style, since 
it is very sure to come up again. Zoe 
believed her, having no other oracle within 
reach. 

“ The Voumards are happy this morning,” 
said Flora, who loved to talk as she wielded 
the comb. “ The eldest son is back. That 
was he who came last night when Mr. Clovis 
heard their wagon. The young ones are 
jumping around him ; you ought to see them. 
But he is a regular romp, that boy: never 
in my life did I see such an upsetting; he 
would turn the house inside out, if they 
would let him. Yesterday evening, accord- 
ing to his mother, he carried them one after 
another in his arms, and then he tossed the 
little ones into the air, — in fact, a frightful 
carnage r 

Zoe said to herself, that in the verses of 
Corneille, which her aunt made her read, 
the word carriage was never used in that 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


25 


sense. Nothing could have been less like 
her idea of carnage than the joyous scene 
she was looking at so stealthily, and with 
such full eyes, the night before. But Flora 
was not too particular in her choice of words. 
In general, it even seemed that she preferred 
to use them in an impossible sense, when she 
did not invent them brand-new, without any 
particular sense. 

After breakfast the two old men ordinarily 
sat side by side on the bench against the wall 
by the door. Miss Celanie stayed in her 
room with Zoe, whom she kept by her until 
noon, making her read and do needlework. 

It was always verses from the classics, the 
letters of the sententious Madame Lambert, 
the pages of Buffon, chapters of Chateau- 
briand carefully chosen, and then intermi- 
nable worsted work, or little squares of 
fine linen, on which she wrought marvels of 
hemstitching, which filled Zoe’s mornings. 
With her glasses Miss Celanie still could 
see well enough to 'inspect the work of her 
niece every fifteen minutes; without them, 
she superintended her position, and never for 
one moment allowed her to lean back in her 
chair, to cross her feet, or to bend over her 
embroidery. Thus she had made Zoe a 
model of deportment. In the room there 


26 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


floated an indefinable odor of age. The eye 
distinguished no colors, — nothing but faded 
washed-out tints, — the faint yellow of the 
damask curtains, — the old reds and greens of 
the pictures in tapestry or in raised worsted- 
work. under glasses, — the dusty white of 
the bead-baskets in which nothing was ever 
put, — and here and there superannuated 
bric-a-brac, somewhat ridiculous, since no 
one knew its use or purpose. On the wall at 
the end were some portraits in silhouette, 
which Miss Celanie spoke of as “ Madame 
the Countess,” — “ Our Privy-Councillor,” 
— “ Dear Little Wolfgang.” On a stand 
were the books for the morning reading, — 
all solidly bound in boards, with parchment 
backs. Most of them had a certain number 
of leaves glued together with wafers, — three 
in the front margin, two at the top, two 
at the bottom, so that it was impossible to 
catch a glimpse of any of the pages thus 
condemned to eternal obscurity. Zoe had 
acquired great facility in skipping from the 
back of one leaf to the face of another 
without indicating by her voice any lack of 
the intervening pages. 

“ But that does not make sense, — the 
rhyme is wanting,” says Miss Celanie, who 
always listened with great attention. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 2 / 

“ It is because there are wafers there. 
Aunt.” 

“ Ah ! if there are wafers, go on.” 

And Zoe would begin again, with perfect 
indifference, some tirade whose commence- 
ment was on the hidden page, along with 
the name of the wise confidante or the pas- 
sionate princess who was pronouncing the 
Alexandrines. 

“Who is speaking?” Miss Celanie would 
ask. 

“ I really don ’t know. Aunt, since it is 
glued.” 

“ From the sense, it is easy to guess that 
it must be Hermione.” 

Zoe would shrug her shoulders and hasten 
on. What mattered it to her whether it was 
Hermione, or any one else? The classic dra- 
mas meant nothing to her: what she really 
loved, what added happiness to her life, were 
the little old volumes, as big as your hand, — 
badly printed on poor paper, badly bound, 
and patiently resewed and reglued, — which 
filled a wardrobe in Cousin Clovis’s room. 
Among them were “ Les Trois Mousque- 
taires,” “La Tulip Noire,” “ Le Collier de la 
Reine,” “Monte Cristo,” — all those charm- 
ing books of Dumas, with their childish, 
powerful phantasmagories. 


28 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


At the hour for the siesta — each one had 
a siesta, and a long one at that, in this house- 
hold of old people — Zoe slipped quietly 
into her cousin’s room, opened the ward- 
robe noiselessly, and quickly hid in her 
pocket two or three of the beloved volumes, 
with their gray paper covers. 

Mr. Clovis in his low chair half opened 
his eyes, and made Zoe a sign of friendly 
complicity. Then she ran away quickly, 
went down the staircase on tiptoe, slipped 
like a mouse past the open door of the 
kitchen where Flora was napping, but with 
one eye only. If it chanced to be raining, she 
had a hiding place in the barn; if it was fine, 
she went to a seat under a tree on the edge 
of the meadow, and for the hundredth time 
threw herself, on the saddle of the faultless 
Athos, the seductive Aramis, or that amiable 
giant of a Porthos, into impossible adven- 
tures. Ah, Miss Celanie and her wafers ! 

But the effect which this continuous read- 
ing produced on Zoe’s mind was not what 
might have been expected. It may be 
that a dose of good sense of more than usual 
strength kept her from romantic brooding; it 
may be that it was because there was no 
youth near hers and that her own still slept ; 
but in some way Zoe was convinced that the 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


29 


world of books is a world purely chimerical, 
and that nothing which happens there ever 
happens in real life. In her dear books, 
which she loved none the less for not believ. 
ing in them, you met many more queens, 
princesses, and other great ladies, than you 
did common every-day folk. There on every 
field blows were struck, there the people 
loved with fury mixed with poesy, and — 
they seldom got married. Now Zoe knew 
well that in real life people do marry; but 
as to love, — no, she sincerely believed that 
could not happen to real people. It was 
about love as about other things, — like the 
“ diamond rings of priceless value,” which in 
the real world are only carnelians (Zoe had 
just received from Miss Celanie one of these 
carnelian rings), — or like the heroic sword 
thrusts which the invisible guardsmen dis- 
tributed so gallantly, but .which are repre- 
sented in the evening paper by vulgar fist- 
fights. All of it was a translation, in fine 
style, of the prosaic realities, and love was 
only a gilded metamorphose of what Flora 
bluntly called “ getting an establishment.” 
Zoe, who, aside from the classics which she 
read aloud without listening to them, knew 
no other author, was perfectly convinced 
that Mr. Alexander Dumas had invented 


30 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


love with the sole idea of putting it into 
his books. 

It was of Zoe that Cousin Clovis was talk- 
ing to her grandfather, seated beside him on 
the bench. Old Brutus Romanel had his 
hands crossed on the head of his cane, and 
with his chin on his hands he was looking 
fixedly at the iron grating of the garden, — a 
fine piece of work with his initials above it, 
and which had stood for forty-eight years be- 
tween stone posts, each crowned with a gran- 
ite ball. Behind the gate, his feeble eyes 
distinguished only a vague spread of verdure, 
but he knew by heart the outlines of the 
grass plats surrounded by box, and the place 
of the larkspurs, hollyhocks, and tufts of peo- 
nies ; he knew that the dahlias were growing 
along the wall at the left, the currants to the 
right, and he loved to remark about such and 
such plants, to give to others, and perhaps to 
himself too, the idea that he could see clearly 
still. 

“ Do you realize that she is eighteen,” said 
Cousin Clovis, swinging his foot as usual. 

“ Who — she,” said the grandfather. “ You 
have a disconnected way of speaking. You 
are failing, Clovis, you are failing decidedly.” 

“To whom do you tell that? I see it 
every day,” replied Clovis composedly. “ It 


A Q UES TION OF LO VE. 3 1 

is of your granddaughter — of Zoe — that I 
was speaking.” 

“ My great-granddaughter you mean, — 
daughter to Ernest, the son of Louis. Louis 
was a fine fellow, — do you remember him? 
He would have lived to a good old age if 
it had not been for that pleurisy. I have 
had pleurisy twice, and I am as sound as a 
nut, with all my faculties, — memory and all. 
I never could understand those men who die 
like flies at the least little ailment.” 

“ I think she is unhappy,” continued Clovis, 
following his idea, and always swinging his 
slipper. 

“ Ah ! you think she is unhappy,” said 
the grandfather, after a long silence. “ Poor 
child ! It is true that Celanie is not amusing. 
No conversation, and a lot of little affectations 
which she acquired abroad. I shall get Zoe 
to read to me, that will divert her.” 

“ Something else perhaps is necessary, — a 
little visit to some of her relations. But she 
would not go ; she is as shy as a strange cat. 
Perhaps the society of a young lady of her 
own age.” 

A young lady,” repeated the grandfather 
in a tone of discontent. “ A slip of a girl 
who is .still growing! That's it! Put notions 
into her head, and we shall have a fine time 
with your ‘ young lady. ’ ” 


32 


A QUESTION OF LOVE 


“ I had an idea of writing to my niece 
Fanny. She has a grown daughter, and from 
what they say I think she would part with 
her for a time. Zoe will be glad to have a 
friend. I find the child too grave, too quiet; 
she has the manners of her aunt. Celanie has 
good manners, admirable; but I don’t know, 
perhaps the fashion has changed in that as in 
other things. It hurts me to think that the 
child is perhaps odd; poor little thing! poor 
little thing ! We are too old for her, Brutus. 
She has no idea that there are any people in 
the world under sixty, — young men in fact, 
— and do you know what will happen? ” 

The grandfather at each pause, at each 
phrase, slowly marked by the swinging of the 
green slipper, shook his head, and muttered 
some inarticulate sound ; for his cane was 
holding his chin so firmly that he could not 
open his mouth. 

“This will happen, — the poor child will 
lose her youth, — the darling ! All we teach 
her is that the greatest happiness is to reach 
the age of eighty. She believes it now. Later 
on, she will cry her eyes out; for there is after 
all only one youth.” 

The grandfather was listening no longer. 
He was thinking of Francis Dumont, of the 
silver dish and the serenade. He had thought 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


33 


of it in the night, and, awake at the dawn of 
day, while the roosters were sounding forth 
lusty salutes which he could not hear, he had 
remembered all sorts of things of a far-away 
time, — things forgotten and dead, and of which 
he had not thought for twenty years and 
more. He recollected that his father had 
said to him once, it must have been in 1830, 
— yes, for he had just lost his first wife, 
Celestine, — “ My poor fellow, I am afraid 
that God may give you the strength to bury 
two or three wives. For you are like your 
Uncle Simeon, — you are of the stuff which 
makes centenarians.” Good stuff! yes indeed, 
good stuff! The doctor had felt him and 
pounded him and auscultated him when he 
had that fall the year of the war, the morning 
that he had tried to open the window so as 
to hear the cannons they were firing near 
Belfort. “ Perfect all through, — sound as an 
oak, lungs all right, the heart like clockwork, 
the respiration normal. You say that you 
are seventy-eight? It is most astonishing.” 
That was what the doctor had said. That 
was twenty years ago, but you don’t wear 
out if you rest and save yourself, — when you 
lead a regular life and don’t smoke. PTancis 
Dumont, now, he smoked like a Turk, and 
that was why his faculties were dulled. 

3 


34 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


“Youth? yes, surely, Clovis, youth is a beau- 
tiful tiling.^ But,” reflected the old man, re- 
turning to his thoughts and lowering still 
more his white head on his cane, so that the 
end of his beard swept his knees, — “ but it 
is also a beautiful thing to reach my age. 
Twenty years! What’s that? Each one of 
us has reached that, and the follies too of that 
time. Francis Dumont can’t last much longer. 
These emotions, this tobacco, — and after him 
I am the oldest in this part of the country, 
and I am so well, so gay.” 

“ Do as you like, Clovis, do as you like,” 
he answered, and Clovis was still talking. 

A shadow fell on the white graver of the 
path at his feet ; he slowly raised his head, and 
saw a young man standing there hat in hand. 

“ Ah, is it you, Samuel? ” said Cousin- Clo- 
vis, whose memory was quicker than that of 
the grandfather. “ Ah, is it you, Samuel ? ” re- 
peated the old man, straightening himself up, 
his beard, which the cane had disarranged, 
grasped in his white hand. 

“ Good morning, Mr. Romanel ; good morn- 
ing, Mr. Clovis. Are you well?” 

“ Very well, my boy, — better than the 
young ones,” said the grandfather, in his feeble, 
broken voice. “ You are back again. Did 
you learn much in Gex? ” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 35 

He said this quickly, so as to prevent Mr. 
Clovis from taking the lead a second time. 

“ What I learned there won’t help me 
much, the methods are so different here ; 
but it broadens the mind, and I was useful 
to my uncle.” 

“ Has he not sold his large farm?’* asked 
Mr. Clovis ; “ I thought I heard some one 
telling your father about it.” 

“ Yes, my uncle and aunt have gone to live 
on a little corner of their land, to end their 
days in peace. That made me free to return 
to Switzerland, and to do my military service 
which I had so much at heart; and, would 
you believe it, I am to wear the stripes,” 
cried the young man, in the ringing joyful 
voice he could hardly force to the moderate 
tone of conversation. 

“ Grandfather, dinner is ready,” said Zoe, 
from the threshold of the door. When she 
saw Samuel, she made a movement as if to 
withdraw into the shadow of the hall. 

“ Come here, little one,” said her grand- 
father. She obeyed, but put on her most 
reserved, staid manner, and did not once 
glance at Samuel. 

“ I hope you are well, Miss Zoe,” said the 
young man, suddenly becoming as grave as 
she was. 


36 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


“ Miss Zoe, what ’s that I hear? ” cried the 
grandfather. “ What do these ceremonious 
manners mean? You used to say ‘ thee ’ and 
‘ thou ’ to each other before you went away, 
and I want things to be kept on this foot- 
ing. Do you hear? Once you were the best 
of friends. It was Zoe here, and Samuel 
there.” 

“Oh, never, Grandpa!” said Zoe, rebel- 
ling and blushing even under the hair which 
framed in her cheeks. At the same time she 
gave Samuel an indignant look, as if she had 
been an accomplice to the accusation. 

“ Miss Zoe always knew how to prevent 
familiarity,” said he, seriously, and rebelling 
in his turn. 

She to be familiar with this great fellow ! 
He was already sixteen when his father took 
the farm, and arrived one fine day with two 
wagon loads of rustic furniture, followed 
by a symphony of tinkling bells, of lowingS) 
and of cracking whips, to take the place 
of the drunkard Dubois, who had drunk 
up all his belongings and was only awaiting 
his sixtieth year to go into the almshouse. 
Seeing that the new farmer had children. Miss 
Celanie had said to Zoe, “ Be friendly, but 
not familiar.” She had learned those ideas in 
Brandenburg. Zoe had not been “ familiar,” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


37 


but not through haughtiness so much as shy- 
ness, and because she felt herself out of place 
in the midst of real children. She started to 
school that same year, and her disappoint- 
ments there absorbed her entirely. Samuel 
went six months later to Gex. They could 
not have had time to grow intimate, as the 
grandfather insisted. 

Zoe had taken refuge near Cousin Clovis, 
— her usual defender. Leaning against his 
shoulder, she lowered her eyes, but her bosom 
was still rising and falling in tumultuous in- 
dignation. “ You have grown very tall,” said 
Clovis, to change the conversation. 

“ Weeds grow apace,” said the grandfather. 
He was irritated. First, there was Clovis 
talking of the little girl’s becoming a young 
lady. Now this fellow in his turn was caus- 
ing embarrassment, and even the child was 
putting on airs. “ Zoe,” said he imperiously, 
“ you must say ‘ thou ’ to this fellow and he 
to you. I wish simplicity to begin now, — 
commence.” 

They looked at each other blushing furi- 
ously ; Zoe’s straight eyebrows were frown- 
ing, and Samuel’s gray eyes paid her back 
in her own coin. 

“ Are you going to obey me? ” insisted the 
old man, growing excited ; a flush rose to his 


38 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


colorless cheeks, his voice took the bitter 
tone of his humor. 

‘‘ Oh ! ” said Zoe, “ I am quite willing to 
say * thou ’ to him, since we shall have so 
little to do with each other.” 

“ Zoe, Zoe,” said Cousin Clovis, reproach- 
fully. 

She looked at him an instant, then, sud- 
denly hiding her face in her hands, rushed 
quickly away. 


CHAPTER III. 


C OUSIN CLOVIS had written a letter. 

Such an undertaking as it had been ! 
First he had no paper. He borrowed some 
from Miss Celanie, to whom he afterwards 
came for advice in certain orthographical 
subtleties, — his information on these points 
being as defective as was that of the First 
Consul. 

He next made a rough draft, and copied it 
and recopied it in his big square Neufchatel 
handwriting. Then he folded it ingeniously, 
and, as he had no confidence in these new- 
fashioned gummed envelopes, he hunted 
through his desk for more than half an hour 
in search of his seal and his stick of red wax. 
The address once written, he was obliged to 
open his letter again, because he had forgot- 
ten to send his regards to a certain Cousin 
James, who would have been hurt at the 
omission, and Clovis would have passed his 
whole day in sealing and unsealing his letter 
rather than offend the humblest of his old 
cousins. The next move was to catch the 


40 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


postman, who always went along the road, at 
the bottom of the garden, about three o’clock, 
as he made his daily rounds. The first day 
they missed him, and this annoyed Cousin 
Clovis very much. 

“ To-morrow you shall watch with me,” he 
said to Zoe, since it is on your account 
that the letter was written.” He could not 
be induced to tell her anything further. Al- 
though curious and somewhat uneasy, she 
coaxed and caressed him, declaring that, if he 
were getting up a conspiracy against her, she 
would run off to the woods, and they should 
never see her again. 

They sat down to watch on an old wooden 
bench, which, blackened by age and weather, 
stood under a lilac bush in the corner of the 
garden, and which looked down on the road 
from the height of the terrace. From this 
coign of vantage they could command more 
than half a mile of the dusty line which lay 
like a white ribbon between its green slopes. 
The postman, however, was but a pretext, 
the old ‘bench an ambuscade ; for Cousin 
Clovis had brought Zoe there with the grim 
intention of giving her a scolding, only he 
did not know how to begin, for it was the 
first time in his life, and the child was all 
unsuspicious. Her elbow on the wall, her 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


41 


head on the palm of her hand, she sat look- 
ing out over the rolling field, magnificently 
gilded by the rays of the sun. Mr. Clovis, 
quite at the other end of the bench, could not 
see her face, — nothing but the contour of 
her cheek and the graceful line of her bend- 
ing white neck. 

“ Zosette,” he began, “ were you not a little 
too hard towards Samuel? ” 

The face was instantly turned farther away, 
a crimson tide flowed over the snowy nape 
and up under the wandering locks that curled 
lightly over it. 

Mr. Clovis watched this signal of distress 
with remorse. “ I don’t want to hurt you, 
dear, nor do I want to meddle, and after all 
I have no right to question you. I am only 
your cousin. But I must say you aston- 
ished me, — yes, more than astonished me, — 
pained me.” 

“ It was Grandpapa’s fault,” murmured Zoe, 
her head still carefully turned away. “ Why 
did he try to make out that we used to say 
‘ thou ’ to each other, and — and — such things ? 
Then he got angry, and I had to say some- 
thing,” — and now she wheeled suddenly to 
her cousin showing him her blushing face. “ I 
don’t know myself why I was so rude, — I am 
horribly timid. Cousin Clovis,” — her voice 


42 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

trembled and her eyes filled, — “ and when 
I am forced to speak, then I say everything, 
anything, only to have done with it all.” 

Mr. Clovis coughed, crossed his legs, and 
swung his foot for some minutes. Appar- 
ently this explanation did not seem to him 
complete. “Your tone was so vexed,” he 
said slowly, as if thinking aloud. “ Was that 
from shyness? It seemed to me, — I may 
be mistaken, — but it really seemed to me 
that you were vexed with him because he did 
not speak first.” 

“That’s just it! ’’ cried Zoe, almost joy- 
ously; “he should have spoken, — should he 
not? ” 

“ Let ’s see, let ’s see,” said Clovis, stroking 
his shaven chin. “ If he had said, ‘ Why, I am 
delighted to say “ thou ” to this young lady,’ 
nothing could be easier, but you would have 
found him most forward. If, on the contrary, 
he had said, ‘ No, I cannot,’ you would have 
felt that he had deprived you of that privilege 
of refusing which belongs to your sex. Sam- 
uel allowed you that, — and he was right. 
That ’s the way it looked to me ; I don’t know 
whether I am right or not.” 

“ But then,” faltered Zoe, “ what am I to 
do? Shall I ask his pardon?” 

Her cousin smiled: “ O youth, youth, the 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


43 


lovely age ! ” he said, half touched, half iron- 
ical. “It does nothing by halves; its im- 
pulses are always extreme. But there, Zoe, 
is not that the postman I see coming? ” 

It was the mail-carrier, and he had to be 
invited in and given refreshments before the 
precious letter was intrusted to his care. 
Afterwards, the conversation was not renewed, 
for Cousin Clovis was not in the habit of giv- 
ing advice ; having started Zoe’s thought in 
the right direction, he allowed her to work 
out her own salvation. 

As she went towards her tree that after- 
noon, with two little gray books in her 
pocket, Zoe still continued to think over 
and question her motives. She recognized 
fully the feeling which had made her speak 
so rudely. That great tall fellow, so red 
and so grave, had not seemed to accept as 
an honor' the familiarity he was authorized 
to use. Yes, there lay her fault, — that had 
been the trouble. Now what could she 
do, — how atone for her impertinent speech? 
The path she was following on the tips of 
her toes, balancing herself with her arms 
and supple waist so as to keep her equi- 
librium, was the line of what had been a 
stone wall formerly separating two estates. 
It was in ruins now, and had rolled most 


44 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


of its stones to right and left among the 
grass. In certain places it had entirely dis- 
appeared under the high growth of bearded 
grass ; here and there a large block, or a 
series of rocky mounds, marked its former 
line through tufts of stonecrop, yellow va- 
lerian, and sorrel with its red stems. It 
ended just where a clump of young ash 
trees, four round, slender, gray stems, rose 
from a single stump, and lightly waved their 
transparent, feathery fronds. 

A large stone under their shade was Zoe’s 
favorite retreat. When she grew tired of 
reading, she could throw herself against the 
smooth trunk which served as a back to her 
seat, and, looking up through the green 
leaves, watch whatever was going on in the 
sky above. Something always was going on 
there ; the clouds took such strange shapes ; 
or, if the sky were clear, then the leaves, 
as they moved, were outlined against it in 
hundreds of curious patterns. Then there 
were the meadows, that she could gaze at 
for hours together without growing tired. 
Never had they seemed so lovely as this 
summer; for the spring had been rainy, 
and the seed-grasses were unusually high in 
consequence. They rose above the daisies 
and the clover, and gave a misty effect to 


A QUESTION OF LOVE, 


45 


the distant fields. Nothing is more varied 
than the growth of grasses ; some are almost 
white, and float like a veil above the green 
turf ; others, with their dark tufts, make spots 
of metallic purple, which flow and melt into 
the surrounding colors. Here is something 
that looks like a sheet of wet turf, but is only 
a bed of the graceful feather-grass, which 
trembles and shakes its frail bells of shining 
brown. Let but a breath of wind come, 
and you will see these tall grasses bend and 
struggle as if trying to escape, then rise, wave 
upon wave. Sometimes it is merely a thrill 
of impatience which moves them to shake 
their brown bunches, glowing with violet and 
gold as the sun strikes them, or they bow 
themselves, slowly, slowly, with a rustle and 
a murmur. Nothing could exceed the grace 
of the long courtesies. 

Zoe stooped to pluck, from between two 
stones, a tuft of this grass, whose pretty 
plumes were dancing gayly there. She held 
them close, and as she examined them saw 
that they were in the very act of flowering. 
Under each delicate scale of lustrous gray 
was a tiny dot of lilac, from which hung two 
exquisite stamens like small golden hammers. 
A velvety powder covered them, and when 
Zoe, like a child, put them to her lips, she 


46 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

tasted a faint flavor of liquorice. Leaning 
on her elbow, she slowly caressed her cheek 
with the grasses, looking before her at the 
twisting line which marked the place of the 
fallen wall, whose stones, scattered to right 
and left, were overgrown with smooth lichens, 
like wet velvet, — their every interstice filled 
with the white petals of the star-flower, and 
the pulpy pale green leaves of the stone- 
crop and its pinky white blossoms. A breath 
of wind sighed in the tops of the trees ; the 
ash turned up its leaves, the tree became 
gray in color ; a swarm of white butterflies 
lit on the wall like a shower of daisy petals ; 
then, as the air became quiet, they flew off 
again, two by two, as though united by invis- 
ible wires, so exactly did their motions cor- 
respond. Zoe followed them with her eyes, 
and just in the direction of their flight she 
saw Samuel coming across the field. She 
arose quickly, and in her clear voice called, 
“ Samuel." It was the work of a moment, 
instantly regretted, and she hung her head in 
consternation. She had nothing to say, ab- 
solutely nothing. He stopped at once, and 
saw her some fifty feet away, perched on her 
big stone, leaning a little forward, graceful 
and slight as a bird. 

“Miss Zoe?" he asked, raising his hat. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


47 


As she said nothing more, he came towards 
her, following the line of the wall, as she had 
done, so as not to trample the grass. Now it 
is difficult to keep up any pretence of dignity 
when one is walking over unbalanced stones, 
tossing the arms about, and executing fancy 
steps from one block to the next. Zoe 
watched with interest each incident of the 
journey, and when the young man reached 
her, she looked at him with a smile. As he 
was naturally very merry, he too began to 
laugh. “ Did you wish to speak to me? ” 

“No, not exactly, — that is, — but since 
you have come, — did you ever read Monte 
Cristo?” she said quickly, as Samuel’s glance 
fell on the little books which had fallen on 
the grass. 

“No, I never have read it.” 

“ Then you must. It is splendid. I will 
lend it to you if you wish. Do you like to 
read?” She spoke very fast, to quell her 
timidity. She knew that if she stopped a 
moment to think, if she paused for a word 
even, she would be lost; she would make 
some egregious blunder, and offend Samuel 
forever. 

“ Yes, I love to read when I have time,” 
he answered. “ My uncle is a great reader, 
but not in this line,” pointing to the little 


48 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


books. “ He reads all the papers and agri- 
cultural works, M. Thiers’s speeches, and 
serious things in fact. Ah, those speeches 
of Thiers’s ! they are fine ! ” 

“ I have n’t read them, but you will like 
Monte Cristo, I assure you. Why, they tie 
him up in a sack at the very beginning, — it 
fairly makes one’s flesh creep ! Won’t you 
sit down?” she added, offering him a stone, 
with a gesture. 

But he refused, pleading his work as an 
excuse; and thereupon she rose and held 
herself perfectly straight, as Miss Celanie 
did when a visitor was leaving. She did not 
offer her hand, — her aunt detested English 
manners, — but said, very sweetly, “ Good by, 
Samuel.” He gazed at her a moment as if 
touched, she looked so dainty, so delicate, in 
her skimp skirt of light percale, like a flower 
that one might stoop and pluck, — a white 
English daisy. 

“What’s the matter?” she asked, uneasily. 

“I — I behaved like a boor the other day ; 
I was vexed.” 

“ Not at all ; it was I,” she cried. 

“ You ! Why, you had the air of a little 
princess, — ‘since we shall have so little to 
do with each other.’” He mimicked exactly 
the tone in which Zoe had pronounced the 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 49 

words, as if they had been ringing in his ears 
during these three days. 

“You make me ashamed of myself; that’s 
not kind of you,” said Zoe, feeling that her 
cheeks were beginning to burn. “ Did I not 
call you just now? Have I not been trying 
to entertain you, — to show that I was sorry 
for those hateful words? ” - 

“ Was that it? ” 

“ Certainly.” 

He turned to go. 

“ How tiresome ! ” thought Zoe; “ I have 
vexed him again.” “ Samuel,” she said, 
moving a step towards him. 

“ Well, Miss? ” 

“ I thought as much. ‘Miss!’ You have for- 
gotten that Grandpapa bade you call me Zoe.” 

“ And you ? ” 

“ Oh I I — I could n’t advise you to dis- 
obey Grandpapa.” 

They stood facing each other, as grave as 
possible. 

“ If you permit it,” said he, solemnly, as if 
taking an oath. 

“ I do permit it,” she replied, as solemnly; 
and with a sudden movement beat a hasty 
retreat towards her tree, feeling that another 
word might spoil this important and dignified 
ceremony. 


4 


50 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


She sat down again and opened her book. 
How delightful to have an easy conscience 
once more ! Zoe gave a sigh of satisfaction, 
and then dismissed Samuel from her mind, 
in favor of her dear hero, Monte Gristo. The 
young man whistled gayly as he strode down 
the path which ran like a furrow through the 
field of green to the wall enclosing the pas- 
tures; his heart was so light that no tranquil 
pace could satisfy him, and he began to run 
like a boy, hat in hand, and his head thrown 
back to breathe in great draughts of air — 
never so delicious as now. When the wall 
was reached, he might have gone over the 
stile, made for sensible people; but he wished 
that the wall had been five feet instead of 
three, as, placing his hands on the top, he 
lightly vaulted over it, and landed on the 
other side. Then, picking up his hat, which 
was rolling away, he threw it high in the air; 
it would have given him great pleasure had 
it caught on some branch, to which he would 
have been forced to climb, but unfortunately 
it came down straight, and he was reduced to 
the commonplace necessity of putting it on 
his head. In a hole in the wall some violets 
were growing, and he stooped to examine 
them. “ How lovely ! ” he thought ; but he 
did not pick them, although he looked unde- 


A QUESTION' OF LOVE. 


51 


cidedly at the enormous button-hole in his 
coarse woollen jacket. By some mysterious 
association of ideas, a vague shadow fell upon 
his happy mood ; he straightened himself 
up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked 
on, but no longer so gay. 

As for Zoe, she grew sad as evening came 
on. It was always thus: her melancholy 
came with the twilight. If she had dared, 
she would have stayed in her own room. But 
Miss Celanie thought young girls should be 
sociable ; her idea of sociability being to sit 
bolt upright in a high-backed chair, while she 
read to the dozing grandfather, and Cou- 
sin Clovis twisted and untwisted his fingers. 
This to Zoe appeared a virtue without com- 
pensation, but just how much it bored her 
she did not herself know; she had never had 
amusement or life, so had no point of com- 
parison. Cousin Clovis, leaning forward in 
his chair, his hands clasped around his knees, 
was studying Zoe’s downcast face. “ It ’s all 
there,” he said, — “all there. A lovely face, 
a tender, sensitive little heart; only the spark 
of fire is lacking ; only the spark.” 


CHAPTER IV. 


HE village cart with the brown mare 



JL harnessed in it was standing waiting at 
the corner of the house. Samuel had wanted 
to bring it to the door, but Flora strenuously 
objected to that, for she did not intend, she 
declared, to spend half an hour raking over 
the backs of the wheels on the gravel path. 
“ Two rooms to get ready,” she grumbled, — 
“ rooms which have not been opened these 
four years, — sheets to get out of the press, 
pins to put into the cushions, the dinner to 
get, and here is Miss Celanie with an attack 
of cramps, — nothing to wonder at in that, 
though, if folks must send telegrams. Why 
could they not have written? No thought 
for others; but that’s the way nowadays.” 

In fact, the telegram had upset the whole 
household. It had arrived at eight o’clock, just 
as breakfast was ready, and for more than ten 
minutes Cousin Clovis, pale as a sheet, had 
turned the envelope in his fingers without 
daring to open it. Was Mary Ann, his sister- 
in-law, dead, or had his agent run off to 
America? 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


53 


“ Dupont the agent ! why, he is as solid as 
the rock. For more than forty years he has 
had charge of our business,” said . Mr. Ro- 
manel, uneasy himself and vexed at being so. 
“ But quick, Clovis ; open the despatch, and 
let us know the worst.” 

Perhaps it is that your Sartel farm has 
been burnt down,” suggested Miss Celanie. 

Mr. Clovis handed the envelope to her, 
pleading by way of excuse that he had mis- 
laid his spectacles; but Miss Celanie shook 
her head, and put her hands on her stomach, 
seized with a sudden cramp. Flora settled 
the matter by bravely reaching for the en- 
velope, and resolutely opening it with a huge 
butter-knife; she unfolded the paper, and 
held it at arm’s length, her head on one side. 
No one dared to breathe. The agent? the 
sister-in-law? the burned farm? which was 
it to be? 

“ What scrawls these telegraph people do 
write ! ” she said, blinking her eyes over it. 
“Who could read such scribbling?” 

Mr. Romanel could no longer contain him- 
self. “ You make my blood boil, ’I he cried. 
“Don’t you know how to read, stupid girl? Ce- 
lanie, read this despatch, and be quick about 
it; you can think of your cramp afterwards.” 

Zoe, like a well conducted young person, 


54 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


had not opened her mouth during all the 
excitement, and expected every moment to 
receive a sign from her aunt to leave the 
room ; for she was always sent away, if by 
chance anything exciting was going to hap- 
pen. But Flora did not approve of slavish 
obedience to her master. “ It will make him 
tyrannical,” she often said, “ if we yield to 
him in everything.” And so it was to Zoe 
that she handed the telegram, and Zoe’s clear 
voice which read out, — 

“ We shall arrive at 1 1.35. 

Adrienne and her brother.” 

All eyes were instantly turned upon Clovis. 

“ A-a-h ! ” said the grandfather, prolonging 
his monosyllable in a sinking tone. 

“ Thank God ! ” murmured Miss Celanie. 

“ For what, if you please?^’ cried her 
father. 

“ That it is not bad news.” 

“ That ’s as you take it.” 

“ Perhaps, sir, you did not understand the 
message,” ventured Flora, who daily broke a 
dozen lai\ces in Miss Celanie’s defence. 

“ Not understand ! Go to your work, and 
don’t meddle in your master’s business.” 

“All the same,” she muttered; “without 
me they would still be standing and looking 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 55 

at that telegram, like calves around an 
umbrella.” 

Mr. Clovis was horribly uneasy. All those 
eyes fixed on him, and now the silence which 
reigned seemed full of reproach. 

“ Flora,” he called after her, “ please go to 
my room and bring the bottle of peppermint 
to Miss Celanie. I am most unhappy to have 
caused all this,” he added, after a little cough 
behind his hand, — “ most unhappy. ' It is 
quite my fault. My nephew — yes, I know 
they ought to have written — perhaps though 
they could only decide at the last moment.” 

“ Scatter-brains ! ” said Mr. Romanel. 

“ I ’ll wager,” said Mr. Clovis in a concilia- 
tory tone, for he was most anxious that Mr. 
Romanel should not take a prejudice against 
Zoe’s future friend. “ I ’ll wager that Adri- 
enne is as sensible as Zoe. This is her broth- 
er’s work. He has said, ‘ Quick, let us go 
at once; send a telegram.’ Young men are 
so masterful ! ” 

And I ’ll wager,” returned the grandfather, 
that it was the young woman who ruled the 
brother, and who brings him here in such 
hot haste. She will turn the house upside 
down.” 

“O no. Grandpapa,” cried Zoe; ‘^we shall 
be so careful to disturb no one ! ” 


56 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

He took her hand, and drew her towards 
him. “ You know,” he said, with a little whim- 
per, like a child who wants to be pitied, — 
“ you know how much consideration I need 
at my age ; only think of what might happen 
to me were I to suffer any excitement.” 

“ I am so sorry,” Clovis kept repeating. 

“ Remember, child,” the old man went on, 
without heeding him, “ in two years I shall 
be one hundred, — a century ! I must not 
have excitement, and you must look to it. 
Just fancy how sorry you would be if — if — 
anything happened to me.” 

His voice broke with the stress of his 
emotion of self-pity, and his eyes filled with 
tears as if for some life cut short in its prime. 
To quiet him, he was left to Miss Celanie’s 
care, while all further deliberations as to the 
measures necessary for the reception of their 
guests were carried on in another room by 
Zoe, Clovis, and Flora. 

This last was a host within herself ; in less 
than five minutes she had decided that the red 
room and the corner room should be aired, 
that the farmer should go to the station with 
the cart, and that Zoe should go with him. 

“ O no, not I ! ” Zoe declared ; “ I don’t 
know them ; I should n’t know what to say 
to them. O Flora, you go I ” , 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


57 


“ And my dinner? It is only proper that 
some of the family should meet them. What 
do you say, Mr. Clovis? You can’t ride com- 
fortably in the cart; it would give Miss 
Celanie more cramps. So there is nothing 
for it; you must go, Zoe.” 

“Is it so hard for you, Zosette?” asked the 
good old cousin softly. 

She thought of the letter he had written 
so painfully, of the invitation he had given, 
of the telegram which had caused such a 
commotion, and all this for her. So she 
pressed his wrinkled hand to her cheek, and 
ran quicky to her room to change her dress. 
She was ready when Samuel appeared with 
the cart, which he drove up to the stone by 
which they clambered up into the cart, for 
there was no step. 

“Ah! are you to drive, Samuel?” said 
Flora. She had brought out Zoe’s parasol, 
a light shawl to serve as a lap rug, and a 
little basket well garnished with all sorts of 
provisions, — for no . one ever knows what 
may happen, nor what fancy may seize the 
appetite at eighteen ; and finally she ap- 
peared with a three-legged stool, to be used 
in the descent from the cart. This object, 
which Miss Celanie considered indispensable 
to decency, was thrust between the seats, with 
its legs in the air. 


58 A QUESTION OF LOVE, 

“ Father is mending the scythes; but you 
need have no fear, I can drive as well as he 
does.” 

“ Yes, yes; I am likely to believe that, — 
a whirlwind like you ! ” 

“ Don’t frighten Zoe,” he said. “ You 
aren’t afraid to go with me, Zoe?” His 
voice had a note in it gravely tender, but a 
little uneasy. 

“No,” she answered ; “ please help me in, 
it is so very high.” 

“ And you are so tiny,” he said, almost 
involuntarily. 

“ One does not need to be six feet high 
to be useful,” she an'Swered, a little nettled. 
She put one foot on the block, the other on 
the wheel, and sprang lightly in before Sam- 
uel could so much as lift his hand. Then 
she arranged the shawl over her knees, and 
settled the basket at her feet. Samuel 
climbed up beside her, and they were off, 
followed to the bend of the road by Flora’s 
last words of advice and caution. 

The day was charming, — a little hazy, but 
the air had that velvety freshness of a June 
rain, and was filled with the scent of wet grass 
and wet earth. The dust of the road, still 
moistened by the recent shower, no longer 
rose in clouds, and from the branches which 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


59 


overhung the road was heard the soft patter 
of dripping leaves. 

“ I did not expect you to be with me,” said 
Samuel, “ or I should have — ” 

“ Should have what? ” 

“ I should have put on Lise’s new bells.” 

“It’s just as well, for I don’t know the 
difference.” 

“ These country things have no interest for 
you,” said Samuel, reproachfully. 

Zoe did not reply. Just then she was look- 
ing dreamily at the sky, and sat with her hands, 
in their quaint cotton gloves, folded before 
her. The sky was very strange. Towards the 
west a mass of great gray clouds was fringed 
with long rays, which shot out from it and 
spread over the horizon like the sticks of 
a fan; some were woolly, some gilded, some 
like fleece, others like long banks of pearly 
shell. Between them glimmered narrow bands 
of blue, fading and mixed with white near 
the west, but elsewhere of a most exquisite 
turquoise shade. Although you could not 
see these clouds change, all the forms dis- 
solved and formed fresh ones, the long white 
streaks became thin wisps, the flocks of 
lambs separated, grew flaky, melted into one 
another, and then drew out in gilded lines. 
The sun under a veil, as in autumn, shone 


6o A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

like a white disk in a nimbus of scattered red 
clouds. 

You are mistaken,” said Zoe, after some 
moments spent in contemplation. “ I am 
much interested in calves.” 

She said this gently, dreamily, thinking all 
the while, “ How I do wish I was lying in 
that cloud up there ! ” What young girl has 
never longed to float on a white cloud ! 

“In calves?” said Samuel, laughing even 
more at her tone than at her words. 

“ Yes, indeed, they are so nice, and so funny 
when they are given salt for the first time. 
Did you never watch them? Some like it at 
once, others sneeze and get angry, and others 
again stop to think about it, and to shake 
their heads over it so.” 

She shook her own head, thrusting out her 
lips and rolling up frightened eyes ; and, to 
add to the mimicry, she even thrust out the 
tip of her tongue. 

“It ’snot easy to imitate a calfs head. 
Try.” 

Then they both burst out laughing, and 
it ended in Samuel dropping his whip and 
having to get down after it. 

“ We sha’n’t be so gay going home,” Zoe 
said with a sigh. 

The prospect of the ride back, and the 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


6i 


fear that Samnel might think her familiar 
and bold, sobered her instantly. She drew 
back into her corner, bitterly repenting her 
mockery of the calves. Like all timid people 
who are proud as well, she had a horror of 
failing in dignity, — a dread of the contempt 
that might follow; then, too. Miss Celanie’s 
teaching had given her such a tender con- 
science that the least peccadillo assumed vast 
proportions. Her moods, uncontrolled as yet 
by knowledge of the world, varied at a word, 
at a thought, just as above her the clouds 
were changing and dissolving at every breath 
of wind. Astonished by her sudden alteration, 
Samuel thought she was weary of the drive. 

“ Would you like to go faster? ” said he, 
leaning towards her; he was so tall, that, 
perched on his coachman’s cushion in order 
to hold the reins higher, he had a bird’s-eye 
view of the top of her hat, and to see her 
profile he was obliged to bend, unless indeed 
she would lift her head again as she had done 
before. 

But the head was not lifted. 

“ Generally farm horses don’t like to go 
fast, but our Lise is still a famous trotter; we 
have only had her three months.” 

“ I am in no haste to get there, — quite the 
contrary; but it might be fun to trot a little.” 


62 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


Samuel touched the flanks of the mare with 
his whip-lash and shook out the reins. Im- 
mediately the great muscles, which had been 
almost-passive, roused to activity ; Lise moved 
her head gayly, and stretched her long legs. 
Zoe had a tremendous bounce, for, though 
the mare was full of life and strength, she 
lacked the training which would have made 
her pace smooth and even. At the first 
shock Zoe said nothing; but the second, 
complicated by a large stone in the road, 
threw her against Samuel, and she could not 
help laughing as she straightened her hat. 
“ She trots very badly, your Lise,” cried she ; 
“ but I don’t care, I like it all the same. Can’t 
we go faster? ” 

Samuel blew a shrill whistle between his 
teeth. Lise bounded forward more swiftly 
still. Clutching the seat with both hands, 
trembling with pleasure and excitement, Zoe 
could hardly control herself, nor refrain from 
shouting to urge her on. A long stretch 
of road, straight, and without an obstacle, 
opened before them. 

“ Let me drive,” cried Zoe, standing up 
suddenly, only to sway and stagger, and al- 
most fall. 

Quick as lightning Samuel threw one arm 
around her, and with his free hand pulled 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


63 


sharply at the reins. The astonished Lise 
slackened her pace, and then finally stopped. 
Zoe had sat down again somewhat dazed. 
Samuel had at once withdrawn his arm, and 
now, under his black brows, his dark gray 
eyes and his brown face were touched with 
an indefinable emotion. 

“You might have killed yourself,” said he, 
and his lips contracted nervously as he turned 
away his head. 

• “ Indeed,” said Zoe, with a shrug of her 
shoulders. 

“ Why, it only needed the merest bounce 
to send you flying out of the cart,” he said, 
irritated by her air of indifference. “ How 
could you be so imprudent?” 

“ I did not know,” she answered, indis- 
tinctly. 

They were both confused. Zoe concealed 
it better than Samuel, but on her shoulder 
she still felt the pressure of the arm which 
had held her so closely. Samuel could hardly 
control himself, the corners of his flexible 
lips twitched, and he lashed the poor mare 
by involuntary jerks at the reins. Even to 
his finger-tips he was thrilling with a new 
sensation, — as if an electric current had 
passed through him when the frail and ner- 
vous form of the young girl had stiffened 


64 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


itself against his arm. The very thought of 
what might have happened brought beads of 
perspiration to his forehead, and yet to see 
Zoe so quiet and calm, — leaning back in her 
corner as if she had no possible connection 
with the incident, — as if Samuel’s alarm had 
been merely the pretext for an audacious 
familiarity, — made his blood boil. There was 
hardly time to cool down before the station 
came in sight. When they reached it Samuel 
got down and led Lise by the bridle to the 
farthest end of the platform, and fastened her 
to the grating there. If the ceremony of 
the stool was to be performed, it was better 
to let it take place in that hidden nook, rather 
than in full view of the main entrance, where 
so many spectators could look on. 

Zoe rose, folded her shawl, put her foot on 
the side of the cart, and then looked down 
in trepidation. Samuel crimsoned to the 
roots of his hair. Two young men going 
by, cigarette in hand, glanced at him curi- 
ously, doubtless asking why a great lout like 
that did not take that slip of a girl in his arms, 
and set her on the ground. The sight of the 
stool made them laugh, and they passed on 
with some mocking speech, which Samuel 
understood without hearing. Yet after what 
had happened he would not have touched 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 65 

the hem of Zoe’s gown for all the world, un- 
less she first asked him to do so.. 

“ Please give me your hand,” she said, 
somewhat sharply, — she thought him so 
awkward and countrified. He held out his 
hands, she lightly placed in them the tips of 
her fingers, and leaped to the ground; she 
struck the stool with her little heel as she 
went ; it turned over and quietly rolled beneath 
the cart. 


5 


CHAPTER V. 



‘HE waiting-room was empty. On the 


JL platform were two or three porters 
and some officials going to and fro, but 
near the door of the baggage-room stood a 
young man and a young girl, their backs 
towards Zoe. 

The young lady was enveloped in a gray 
veil, and wore a travelling cloak in two shades 
of gray, whose wide, floating sleeves flapped 
at each movement like the wings of a gigan- 
tic bird. The cloak alone would have intim- 
idated Zoe, but there was besides something 
in the girl’s way of moving, — a certain rest- 
less activity, which made the ends of her veil 
float out behind her, shook loose the ribbons 
of her parasol, and set quivering the fringes of 
the shawl in the shawl-strap. Suddenly this 
vivacious person turned, and saw Zoe behind 
her. 

“ This is my cousin Adrienne? ” murmured 
Zoe, feeling that it was her place to say some- 
thing first, but growing pale and cold with 
the effort. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


67 


“ Herself and none other,” cried the young 
lady. “And you are Zoe? Let me look at 
you.” 

She raised her veil hastily, threw a glance 
on the little unknown cousin, then, perhaps 
to hide a smile of amusement, she stooped, 
took Zoe’s face in both hands, and kissed her 
squarely on the mouth, as one does a baby. 

“ This proper young man is my brother,” 
she added, with a gesture towards her com- 
panion, who, with his elbow bent at the fash- 
ionable angle, lifted his hat some five inches, 
and in this irreproachable attitude stood wait- 
ing for Zoe to recognize him. 

Zoe made him a courtesy without daring 
to raise her eyes. “ I hope you had a 
pleasant journey,” she said, trying to steady 
her voice. 

These cousins were even more terrifying 
than she had fancied them. Their ease of 
manner increased her shyness, and it seemed 
to her that an endless time intervened between 
each of the phrases she interchanged with 
them. 

“ Our farmer’s son will take your baggage,” 
she said, after one of these eternities of silence 
in which her heart was beating so fast that it 
filled her ears with a dull roar. 

“ That tall fellow there ; why, he is quite 


68 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


good-looking. Your farmer’s son? Jules, 
give him the check.” 

“ I will go with him,” said Jules, “ if you 
will permit me to leave you for a moment.” 

Zoe signed to Samuel, who had been stand- 
ing apart, and the two young men went off 
together. 

“Now, little kitten, how are we to get to 
the house? ” said Adrienne, slipping her hand 
into Zoe’s arm. 

“ We are to drive; the cart is at the other 
end of the station.” 

“That’s settled, then. You are shy, are 
you not? I see that. You are quite foolish, 
for neither my brother nor myself is worth 
the pains, and you will laugh at yourself when 
you know us better. I propose that we go 
to the cart, install ourselves in it, and make 
acquaintance as quickly as possible.” 

Without waiting for an answer, she hurried 
Zoe into the waiting-room, crossed to the 
entrance, and ran down the steps, her wide 
sleeves floating behind her at every instant. 

“ Is that your turn-out, — that brown horse 
there? How happy I should be to have a 
horse and carriage ! ” 

“ It is not ours, it is our farmer’s ; but — 
I thought — ” She stopped short, blushing 
furiously. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


69 


“You thought what, little Miss Candor? 
Ah, I have it! No, my dear, you are sadly 
mistaken. We are as poor as church rats. 
Our Uncle Clovis did not tell you that? Pray 
what did he tell you about us? ” 

“ He told me,” said Zoe, lifting her head 
proudly, “ that your mother was a fine woman, 
and your father a most excellent professor. 
He always speaks like that of his family.” 

“ Entirely true, yet it is no less true that 
we are like the historic rat. Jules gained 
some scholarships, and so got through his 
course of engineering. My oldest sister gives 
music lessons, and I do the housework with 
Mamma. I sew, I cut out, I make all the 
clothes for the family. Ah I I have my good 
points, and I shall explain them to my uncle.” 

She gave a gay laugh, and, spying the 
stool upset beneath the cart, picked it up, 
set it straight, and by its aid climbed into the 
cart, — not too awkwardly for a city girl. 

“ Delightful ! ” she cried, as soon as she 
settled herself. “ Why, it actually has springs ! 
That was not in my idea of it. I hoped to be 
shaken about like salad in a basket. But 
you don’t talk, little Cousin. Is n’t your fit 
of shyness over yet?” 

Zoe, in her politeness, and through her 
timidity, had given her cousin all the room 


70 


A QUESTION OF LOVE, 


possible, withdrawing quite to the other end 
of the seat. Adrienne put her arm around 
her and drew her closer. “Just see, — you 
are not afraid of me. Look at me closely. 
I really don’t believe you would know me 
again if you met me in the street.” 

Zoe lifted her eyes and smiled. She saw 
two laughing gray eyes full of light beneath 
their pale eyebrows, a face irregular, but 
bright, a complexion of washed-out blonde, 
and a crop of hair curling and flying in every 
direction. The frank glance of those gray 
eyes went straight through Zoe’s serious ones 
to her heart. The charm worked, and Zoe 
was conquered. 

She drew closer to her cousin, and laid her 
hand in hers. Her heart beat fast, but this 
time for joy, and she said to herself, “ I have 
a friend, I have a friend at last.” Immedi- 
ately she began to admire Adrienne with ar- 
dor, — her lovely hair, her fashionable cloak, 
her long gloves, everything she said in her 
crisp rapid speech, with little quick motions 
of the head. 

“ That ’s my way,” said Adrienne, giving 
Zoe’s hand affectionate little shakes. “ I 
know what it is to be timid. I used to suffer 
tortures. Now when I meet timid people I 
simply say, ‘ I see you are shy,* and they 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 71 

generally answer, ‘ I acknowledge it.’ Then 
at least the way is clear. While, if you pre- 
tend not to notice them, the poor wretches 
make desperate efforts to conceal their suf- 
ferings, — and they do suffer. No, my way 
is better, and I have even made cures.” 

“ You shall cure me,” said Zoe, who was 
expanding as a flower opens. 

“ I hope so. With Jules it is different. He 
can’t put you at ease, because he is not so 
himself. He is always most proper, and will 
intimidate you frightfully, but listen a mo- 
ment. He flunked in his examinations. O, 
he passed them all right afterwards, but he 
was plucked the first time. When you feel 
that he is a sort of Gorgon’s head, just say 
to yourself, ‘ All the same, this irreproachable 
young man failed in his examinations.’ That 
will help you to react against him. You ’ll 
see, I am only nineteen, but I am strong in 
psychology! How old are you. Pussy?” 

“ Eighteen.” 

“ Eighteen 1 Are you going to grow any 
more? ” 

I suppose so ; all my dresses had to 
be lengthened only this spring. Here come 
Samuel and your brother,” said Zoe, with a 
start. “ What a pity 1 ” 

“ O, we can talk just the same. We have 


72 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


a mountain of things to say to each other, 
Jules; so please be discreet enough to hear 
nothing from your place in front, — all of our 
talk is of things feminine.” 

“ That increases my desire to hear.” 

Adrienne shrugged her shoulders. “ Al- 
ivays what you are obliged to say! Jules, 
you have no imagination, you are as com- 
monplace as a bandbox.” 

The simile made Zoe laugh, and the hand 
she had slipped under the wide sleeves 
pressed Adrienne’s arm. All these forms of 
girlish intimacy came to her by instinct, and 
with them a touch of self-assurance and fun. 
She looked at Jules from under her long 
lashes; he seemed small beside Samuel, but 
really was of medium height, with a light 
brown mustache, a regular face, void of ex- 
pression, — this perfectly imperturbable grav- 
ity being born of a total lack of all sense of 
humor. Zoe, whose intuitions were quick, 
decided at once that he would never joke her, 
but that, on the contrary, she would soon find 
courage to tease him. This discovery, as 
gratifying as unexpected, brought with it a 
delicious sense of novelty. 

“ I should not have been afraid of him 
even if he had not failed,” she whispered in 
Adrienne’s ear. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


73 


The ride home was very enjoyable. They 
laughed, they talked, they admired the coun- 
try, and when, from beneath the seat. Flora’s 
basket was brought forth and found to con- 
tain delicious gooseberry tarts, the luncheon 
was eaten in wild spirits. Samuel was the 
gayest of them all. After the first moment 
of stiffness, he had met Adrienne on her own 
ground so well that Zoe was proud of him, 
and found him much more interesting than 
her cousin, but gave a secret sigh over his 
bad temper. “ For he has a temper,’’ she 
said to herself, “ and is so touchy I can’t 
speak without offending him. Here is Adri- 
enne asking to drive, and he is not cross with 
her as he was with me for the very same 
thing. Jules is quite different; I shall never 
quarrel with him, that ’s sure.” 

At the bend in the road her eyes sought the 
clearing in the great beeches. There is Gray 
Manse,” said she ; then added, more timidly, lay- 
ing her cheek caressingly against Adrienne’s 
shoulder, “ Let me bid you welcome.” 

“ Thank you. Cousin,” said Jules, raising 
his hat. 

Adrienne half rose. “ Why, that ’s really 
a castle, with that old gray fagade, the two 
wings, and that enormous roof. What a roof! 
and what garrets I I hope you have a ghost 


74 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

or two to keep in them. No? Well, after 
all, it is better without them, — ghosts are 
an old story now. Zoe,” she went on in an 
undertone, “ which of these two old gentle- 
men by the doorway there is my uncle?” 

“ The one coming to meet us ; the other is 
my great-grandfather.” 

“He is a hundred, isn’t he? O Zoe, I 
never can dare to speak to such an antique ! 
I think I shall faint.” 

“ How are you, my dear niece,” cried Mr. 
Clovis, throwing the gate wide open, and 
standing close against the post to allow the 
cart to pass. “ Drive to the door, Samuel, 
drive to the door. Flora can scold if she likes ! 
Did you have a pleasant trip, Adrienne? ” 

“ Very, thank you. I was in the keeping 
of my brother here, for Mamma would not let 
me come alone.” 

“ Our young engineer,” said Mr. Clovis in 
a tone of respect; “we are all happy to meet 
him. How are you? Get down, get down, 
young people, and let me present you to the 
rest of the family.” 

The grandfather had risen and stood by 
the doorway, holding himself so stiffly erect 
that not one inch of his great height was lost. 
His ivory-like hand was half buried in his long 
beard. He had been considering whether he 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


75 


should receive his guests standing or sitting, 
and he had decided to stand, in order that 
their first impression of him might not be 
that of a decrepit old man tied to his chair. 

“ This is my great-niece and my great- 
nephew,” said Clovis, leading forward Adri- 
enne, who for once seemed disposed to hang 
back. 

“I am happy to see you at Gray Manse, 
although you gave us so little time to prepare 
for you,” the old man said slowly, fixing his 
dull eyes first on Adrienne, then on Jules, 
and stroking his beard. “ Since you are 
come, you can give us a little light on a cer- 
tain subject. Which of you is responsible for 
the sending of that telegram? ” 

The brother and sister stared at each other 
in astonishment. “ Great heavens ! We have 
made some blunder, and he has given us a 
black mark,” murmured Adrienne, shrinking 
farther back. 

“ Why do you stand looking at each 
other?” said the impatient old man. “In 
my day young people were taught to answer 
when they were spoken to. Make them 
speak, Clovis; if they belonged to me, I 
should know how to manage them.” 

Adrienne glanced at Jules and saw his lips 
twitch in a way that she knew. He was 


76 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


thinking that this reception was not in “ good 
form,” and would intrench himself behind his 
customary defence, — absolute silence. Adri- 
enne stepped forward, a flush of embarrass- 
ment on her cheeks. 

“ I don’t wish to hide any part of the sin 
from you, sir. It was Jules who carried the 
message to the office, but the fault is mine. 
I had several things to do, and as I could not 
be certain as to when I should be finished, I 
said, ‘ Don’t let us write, but telegraph just as 
soon as we know the train.’ I am sorry it 
displeased you.” 

“ Not at all, not at all,” he said, waving his 
hand, “ don’t mention it again. Clovis, you 
see I was right.” 

He sat down again, and continued to shake 
his head with an air of triumph. At the first 
words about the telegram, Mr. Clovis had 
been on pins and needles. He had tried to 
encourage Adrienne by friendly nods, but 
when the last words were said he made Zoe 
a hasty sign to take her cousin in quickly. 

“ Come, Adrienne,” she said, “ let me show 
you to your room.” Hardly had they en- 
tered the hall out of sight, when she threw 
her arms around her cousin’s neck. 

“ O Adrienne, what a welcome ! I am so 
sorry about it. But you will forget it, will 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 77 

you not? Don’t pay any attention to it. 
Grandpapa is really glad of your visit, only 
he had had a little discussion with Cousin 
Clovis, about the telegram. Here is Aunt 
Celanie, who is just coming to tell you how 
glad we are to have you.” 

Miss Celanie came forward with noiseless 
footsteps. She lifted upon Adrienne her eyes, 
so vague and sad, gave her a weak kiss, and 
held her hands a few seconds as she asked 
her sorrowfully what sort of a trip she had 
had, and if travelling did not give her a head- 
ache. Then, hearing that Adrienne’s brother 
was outside, she glided to the door to over- 
power him with the warmth of her welcome. 
The two young girls slowly went up the stairs 
without exchanging a syllable. On the land- 
ing, Adrienne turned impetuously towards 
her cousin, “Now be frank; what is the 
matter here? We ought not to have come. 
Is there a death in the house?” 

“ A death ! ” cried Zoe stupefied. 

I can’t imagine anything else. First of 
all, your grandfather reproaches us for taking 
you by surprise, and then this lady with the 
doleful countenance — ” 

“ O, Aunt is always like that.” 

“ Always like that ! I have it ! she must 
have been crossed in love ! ” 


78 


A QUESTION OF LOVE, 


Zoe burst out laughing, and, opening wide 
a door on her left, she led Adrienne into an 
immense room, where the sun greeted their 
renewed merriment. 

It was the “Red Room,” — Flora’s pride, 
with its curtains of crimson damask, its Eastern 
rug on the polished floor, its chairs of Empire 
style, painted light gray, and on the walls, in 
symmetrical order, fine old engravings repre- 
senting the battles of the Emperor. A large 
vase of peonies, red and variegated, had been 
put there by Zoe, because they matched the 
color of the curtains. Nothing was lacking 
to the toilette table draped in its white dimity ; 
the catch-alls in fancy straw; a pincushion of 
crimson satin covered with a marvellous crea- 
tion of Russian guipure, the work of Miss 
Celanie’s own fingers, as was likewise the 
checkerboard pattern of pins stuck in it. 
The time-honored water glass, — in old crys- 
tal, delicately cut and gilded, — the decanter, 
the sugar-bowl, and the transparent waiter, 
were all reflected in an inclined mirror with 
a gray border. 

“ Does your room please you?” said Zoe, 
coming and going, opening closets which in 
the city would have been used for dressing- 
rooms, and drawers in which one could easily 
sleep. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


79 


“ I must tell you one thing,” said Adrienne. 
“Never in my life have I slept alone in a 
room. There are eight of us at home, and 
we huddle together in five rooms ; and from 
these you must exclude the parlor, which 
only is used to confirm our social position. 
What a pretty cushion ! Shall I have time 
to brush my hair before dinner? I can do it 
in the turn of a hand.” She raised her arms 
quickly, took out three pins, shook her head, 
and down fell a blonde cascade, a cloud of 
hair reaching to her waist. 

Zoe gave a sigh of admiration. “ What 
pretty hair ! ” she said. 

“ Not bad, after a fashion,” said Adrienne, 
smiling to herself in the glass while with both 
hands she brought to the crown of her head 
the heavy twist of ashy yellow. “ I should 
like to have it less colorless — because of my 
complexion. Your complexion is lovely, lit- 
tle Cousin.” 

“Do you like it?” Zoe murmured, her 
heart beating with pleasure. 

“Do I like it, — that flower skin! How 
do you manage not to have freckles? How I 
have struggled against them I Just imagine 
that at fifteen I had great spots as big as that, 
and with my washed-out skin you can’t think 
what a fright I was.” 


8o 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


“And how did you get rid of them?” said 
Zoe, who found this conversation alive with 
interest It was so new, so young, so deli- 
ciously frivolous, — even dear Dumas paled 
in contrast 

“ I ’ll tell you in a minute. I never talk 
when I am making my coil ; that is the crit- 
ical moment.” 

One pin, two pins, three pins, and the two 
puffs of the coil were fixed, smooth and bril- 
liant, a little to one side, coquettishly ; then a 
tiny shell comb, all open-work, which looked 
like the crest of a pheasant, was planted just 
on the top of the airy structure. 

“ How clever you are ! ” said Zoe, who only 
talked in exclamations, and even so repressed 
half her feeling. 

“ Happily, I have wavy hair naturally, and 
that makes it easy. I never take more than 
three minutes. But where were we? I was 
going to tell you that Mamma, seeing me 
quite disfigured with freckles, and very un- 
happy over it, advised a dew cure. It .ij 
childish, perhaps, but it is worth all the 
washes of the perfumers, and is much less 
expensive, — which counts fora great deal. 
Privately, I think Mamma’s idea was to make 
me rise early. Every morning I went into 
the garden with a linen handkerchief. We 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


8 


have a garden hardly big enough to see, but 
the dew is not proud, and fell there just as 
elsewhere ; and I sponged off the plants, and 
then put the wet handkerchiefs in compresses 
on my face, — and you see.” 

Even while ending her sentence Adri- 
enne’s eyes wandered over Zoe, and she was 
evidently thinking of something else. 

“ Would you be hurt,” she said, with some 
hesitation, if I told you that I did not like 
your hair dressed so?” 

Zoe blushed painfully, and her eyes filled 
with tears before the last word was out. 

“ I know I look ridiculous,” she said ; “ I 
have thought so often and often, but now 
that I see you I am sure of it ; but don’t tell 
me so, it would hurt me too much.” 

Adrienne stooped and kissed her, gave her 
a friendly pat, and said nothing more. 

You really find, then, that my hair is — ” 
Zoe recommenced. 

“ A little too much — in the Louis Philippe 
style,” said Adrienne, biting her lips to keep 
from laughing; for Zoe’s little serious face 
was too absurd between the heavy plaits 
which passed round her ears. “ Take out 
your pins,” said she> resolutely; I ’ll do it 
for you myself.” 

The mystery was accomplished. Zoe’s 
6 


82 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


shoulders were covered with a large white 
towel, and she stole a look from time to time 
towards the mirror, trembling from head to 
foot with her excitement, her fear, her pleas- 
ure. What would Flora say? This question 
only suggested itself towards the close of the 
operation, when the plaits had been trans- 
formed into a perfect twist, — no more bands, 
but a soft loose puff of hair around the face. 

“Just your style,” said Adrienne, stepping 
back to survey her work. “ It is pretty and 
severe at the same time. Now, my dear little 
one,” she went on, taking Zoe’s two hands, 
“ there is only one thing, — we ought to say 
‘ thou ’ to each other.” 

“ O, I did not dare to ask it of — thee,” 
said Zoe, hiding her face on the neck of this 
delightful friend. 

“ Dinner, dinner,” called Flora, in the 
passage. 

Flora was always the bell in Gray Manse, — 
“ a belle which never rings,” she said, quite 
proud of her pun. 

Going down the stairs, with an arm around 
each other’s waist, the two girls met Mr. 
Clovis Zoe ran up to him longing to hug 
him, but she restrained herself, and only took 
his arm as she lifted to him her radiant face. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


83 


“ Thank you, thank you, dear Cousin ! I 
am so happy ! We are already chums, — we 
say ‘ thou' She is so amusing, so bright, 
and my cousin Jules does not frighten me at 
all.” 

She said all this without stopping for breath, 
her eyes shining, her voice trembling with 
excitement. 

“ Very decidedly,” thought the kind cousin, 
“ it was this she needed.” 

In the opening of the front door Mr. Ro- 
manel appeared, leaning on Jules’s arm. They 
had been talking together all this while, and 
were now great friends. Having decided be- 
forehand that Clovis’s niece was a scatter-brain 
and his nephew an admirable young man, the 
old man had been delighted to find his predic- 
tions fulfilled from the outset. Jules’s reserve 
and silence, which under other circumstances 
would have offended him, now pleased him 
immensely, and he had taken great pains 
to efface the first impression of his-welcome ; 
he questioned the young man as to his stud- 
ies and his plans. In his turn, Jules had 
made the customary inquiries as to the old 
man’s health, and Mr. Romanel was never so 
happy as when able to say, “ I am stronger 
than the young people, — stronger than the 
young people.” Moreover Jules had compli- 


84 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


merited him upon his memory, and had lis- 
tened with deference to two or three anec- 
dotes of “ the good old times.” 

“It is just twenty-six years ago to-day, — 
it was in ’44,” said the old man, coming in 
with his feeble step, but careful to lean more 
on his cane than on his companion’s arm, — 
“ that a frightful tornado blew down our 
weather vane, and devastated all this part 
of the country; but you don’t remember 
that?” 

“ As I am barely twenty-five, it would be 
difficult for me to remember. Besides, I have 
not the remarkable memory for dates that 
you are blessed with.” 

“ That belongs to the past too. People 
don’t have memories nowadays ; they put 
everything down in note-books and memo- 
randa. I never had any note-book but 
this,” tapping his forehead with his fore- 
finger. 

“ An indelible one,” said Jules politely. 

“What? ” cried the old man; but instantly 
regretting that he had let Jules see he was 
growing deaf, he added, “ Yes, yes, perfectly ; 

I understand.” 

The dinner went off without incident, — 
only, when Flora brought in the soup tureen, 
she almost let it fall, and gave vent to an ex- 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


85 


clamation of surprise at the sight of Zoe’s 
little head, without plaits, without parts, and 
the pearly ears quite bare, instead of being 
modestly covered. Each time she passed 
behind the girl’s chair, she cast upon the 
intricate and wicked twists of hair a look, 
which Zoe felt, and which made her blush 
even to the nape of her neck. 


CHAPTER VI. 


OR the whole two hours he had been 



T home, Samuel had scarcely opened his 
mouth, he who was usually so gay and talk- 
ative, so full of all sorts of stories about his 
life in Gex. 

At dinner, his mother had thrown many 
inquiring glances at his father, who always 
answered by a shrug, which said plainly, 
“ How should I know? ” The two little ones, 
whose chins were barely on a level with the 
table, looked at their oldest brother with as- 
tonishment in their big blue eyes. Mari- 
anne, who was fifteen, and already quite a 
little woman, as well as Louis, the slow-witted 
fellow, and George, the next in age, whose 
sole pleasure lay in his admiration of Sam- 
uel, — all of them felt depressed and sad 
because Samuel was so quiet. During his 
absence they had managed to live without 
him ; they wrote him every six months or so, 
telling him they were well, and sent him their 
love, and that he must work hard and do all 
he could to please his uncle and aunt. But 


A QUESTION OF LOVE, 


87 


when he got back, he found his place waiting 
for him ; and his mother, that very morning, 
had said, “ I don’t know how we ever got 
along without you.” Not that he was her 
favorite, although he was her first-born. 
That strange instinct of compensation which 
nature has put in the hearts of mothers made 
her give her tenderest care and thought to 
Louis, the dull, heavy boy, so slow and indo- 
lent, and with wits so far from quick that he 
could never push himself into notice. For 
all her other children, the good dame had a 
prompt tongue, a ready hand, and an active 
justice, which did not stop to inquire into 
details. The little, thin brown woman, with 
her flat chest, her bony wrists, was singularly 
gifted with endurance. She boasted, indeed, 
that she had never been in bed more than 
three days in her life, and that she had peeled 
the carrots the morning after Samuel’s birth ; 
and she was so helpful in all the work, in 
doors and out, so frugal and industrious, that 
she was a true helpmeet to her husband, who 
in his turn knew her value, and never ven- 
tured to contradict her. Talking, moreover, 
was not in Farmer Voumard’s line. He went 
his way quietly, thinking over his plans, car- 
rying them out when he could, and paying 
no more heed to opposition than to the cac- 


88 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


kling of the hens in the barnyard. It was he 
who had wished to send Samuel to his uncle 
in France, that he might learn something 
of the world. The mother wanted to send 
Louis, but the father negatived this decidedly, 
adding a comment which deeply wounded 
his wife : “ Such an oaf as he w'ould give a 
pretty idea of our family; my uncle would 
think that all my boys were like that, and 
would urge Aunt to leave them nothing.” 
The aunt was a Voumard, — sister to the 
farmer’s father, — and Samuel was thought 
to be like her. 

After dinner Samuel followed his father to 
the shed, where the carpenter’s bench and all 
sorts of tools and implements were kept; in 
a few minutes, a great noise of hammers 
beating on the scythe-blades arose in the 
court. On the farm, no one dreamed of a 
siesta except in midsummer, when the heat 
was overpowering, — no one, that is, except 
fat Louis, who each afternoon glided into 
some corner of the barn, or on to the fresh 
straw among the calves, to yield to the half- 
hour’s idling which his heavy temperament 
required. Each day his mother connived at 
this disappearance, concealing it with some 
excuse, and if Marianne happened to ask 
where Louis was, she was quickly hushed. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


89 


“ Your mother ruins that boy,” said the 
father, in a tone of mingled irritation and 
regret, as he saw, from the door of the shed, 
that Louis was slipping off to the barn. 
“ Ah ! my father would have stirred me up 
with a pitchfork if he had found me sleeping 
in broad daylight.” 

Ever since Samuel’s return, his father, 
seeing him so manly, had confided more in 
him than ever. “ Never,” he went on, “ will 
Louis be fit to do anything on his own 
account ; he will always be behindhand, sow- 
ing when others are reaping. They say that 
it sharpens a boy’s wits to go to America. 
If I thought so — ” 

He swung his hammer again, the blows 
alternating with Samuel’s in a sort of rhyth- 
•mic cadence, followed by the metallic ring of 
the steel. They were silent a while. 

“ Is it expensive to go to America?” asked 
Samuel, suddenly. 

His father looked at him, hurt at being so 
promptly taken at his word. “ Is it only the 
expense that would keep you from letting your 
brother go?” he said, reproachfully. 

“ I was not thinking of Louis,” said Samuel, 
hanging his head. 

“ Of whom, then ? ” 

He did not answer at once, but in an in- 


90 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


stant straightened himself up, and gave his 
scythe a ringing blow. 

“O, no one,” he said; “it was just a silly 
thought.” 

That evening, the farmer repeated this 
short dialogue to his wife, word for word. 

“ Well, I do hope,” was her first remark, 
“ that you have no idea of sending Louis over 
there.” 

“ I am not thinking of it at present; but 
I was talking to you about Samuel.” 

His wife deliberately bit the end of her 
needle, — she was darning a sock, and run- 
ning the coarse brown wool in long stitches 
from one weak spot to another. 

“ Samuel is interested in some girl,” she 
said, slowly. 

“You think so?” said her husband, to 
whom the same idea had occurred. “ It 
must be one of the Gex girls, — he left here 
too young. Let me think, whom did he 
write us about? I have all his letters there 
in the desk ; we might read them over. But 
why should he go to America?” 

“ To gain money. They say it can be done 
more quickly there. As for me,” said the 
mother, with a swelling heart, “I shall never 
consent to it. How can you know that you 
will ever get back, once you go so far away? ” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


91 


“ Don’t fret,” said her husband, going to 
the window to see if the sky was still clear. 
“It was only a passing thought, — a silly 
one at that. He said so himself.” 

The next morning Samuel was his old self 
once more. Ah ! how he had lectured him- 
self during the night, sitting on the side 
of the bed where George was sleeping so 
soundly, only rolling his head from time to 
time on his pillow, as if he felt upon his face 
the streak of moonlight travelling silently 
across the bed. Nothing was heard but 
George’s quiet, deep breathing, and it was a 
most unusual thing for this young farmer, 
always exhausted by a healthy fatigue, to 
watch while others slept. But his thoughts 
mastered him, and gave him no peace. Now 
it was some cutting phrase which rose again 
and again in his mind; now eyes — always 
the same eyes — opening upon him in the 
darkness, only to scorch him with their glance 
of disdain or vexation. Although not given 
to self-examination, Samuel tried to reason 
with himself: “ Why do you get so angry? 
why should the remembrance of two or three 
little phrases act as a goad to you?” He 
decided that it was his pride ; but he had 
never felt so before. And whence came these 
flashes of sensitiveness, this deeply troubled 


92 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


feeling, all so new to him, — this restless desire 
to be on the move, — this quick irritability, 
followed by a sudden softening, which for- 
gave all offence? Ought he to go away? 
What! because his self-love was wounded? 
Should he not rather humiliate this girl, this 
child of his masters, who must, in her turn, 
have some tender, vulnerable spot? No, it 
would be better to ayoid her entirely ; not 
seeing her, he would soon forget the mortifi- 
cations she inflicted upon him. Yes, that was 
it. He would keep away from her. Ah I it 
would be easy to avoid one who is not seek- 
ing you. Would Zoe so much as notice that 
he was holding aloof? 

The sense of the distance between them 
contracted his throat suddenly, and he re- 
belled against this new emotion. “ I am as 
good as any of them,” he said to himself. 
“ But as if that had anything to do with it I 
What are they to you, or you to them? Go 
your own way ; do your work, and forget. 
That’s the shortest way out of it. Wipe out 
these fancies; don’t even think of them, for 
thinking brings them back.” 

Samuel grew so restless that George finally 
roused and raised himself on his elbow to ask, 
“ What is the matter? Are you sick?” 

“ No, no; lam all right.” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


93 


“ Lie down, then ; the moonlight is keeping 
us awake ; I have hardly closed my eyes,” 
he murmured indistinctly. He sought a cool 
place on his pillow, and was soon asleep 
again. 

The interruption to his thoughts, the voice 
real and familiar amid the confusion of the 
subtle voices which visit us at night, chased 
away the nightmare ; and Samuel lay down, 
thrusting his fists into his eyes to hold the 
lids closed, and little by little drifted off into 
dreams. 

In the morning it was all clear before 
him. The joy of physical activity destroyed 
all the black tissue woven by his brain when 
his arms swung idle, and he went singing to 
his work. His father was delighted at the 
change ; but his mother, less certain, said to 
herself, “ Love’s moods are very changing.” 

About ten o’clock, as Samuel was drawing 
from the barn one of the carts, to make sure 
that the wheels, the springs, the shafts, were 
all in order, and that nothing should fail 
them as they started to the fields. Flora 
appeared in the doorway. The cart made 
such a noise, as it rolled over the uneven 
floor, that she had to call him at the top of 
her voice, “O Samuel ! ” 

“ Miss Flora? ” 


94 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


“ Come here ; do you think I can talk to 
you a mile off? ” 

“Well, what would you say to taking a ride ? ” 
cried he, pushing the cart to the doorway. 
“ Get in, and I ’ll take you up and down.” 

“ You goose ! How old do you .think 
I am?” 

“Forty; not a day less!” he laughed. 

She shook her finger at him ; then, sud- 
denly lifting her skirts, and showing her 
great flat feet, she climbed on the spring, 
and actively climbed over the rail. 

“ Forward I ” she called. 

Samuel got between the shafts and gave 
them a shake. The cart started rapidly, 
making the barn-floor tremble. Arrived at 
the far end, Flora had had more than enough. 
“I won’t go back; thanks!” she said, gasp- 
ing with laughter and fright. “I wonder that 
my old bones are still together; and besides 
the floor slopes that way. If the cart got 
too fast for you, you would be crushed, my 
fine fellow.” 

“ We must risk something for the ladies,” 
he answered, gallantly. 

“O flatterer! It’s easy to be seen that 
you’ve been in France. But it is precisely 
for the ladies that I have come out to you, 
and for Mr. 'Clovis into the bargain. Our 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


95 


young folks want to go to the ‘ Seven Lad- 
ders,’ and have a picnic in the woods near 
there. They beg you to go with them, to 
show them the way.” 

“ I have n’t the time, thank you ! ” he 
muttered, in a changed voice. 

“ Why, I spoke to your father first about 
it, and he says there ’s nothing to prevent ” 

“ Still, I have n’t the time,” he repeated, 
frowning. 

“ Oh ! ” said Flora, offended, “ if it ’s because 
you can’t afford your day, they will pa — ” 
She did not finish, for he gave her such a 
look that the word died on her tongue “ I 
see,” she said to herself, “ Zoe and he have 
had some bout; I was like that at her age, — 
always at daggers’ points with the boys. As 
Zoe is the daughter of the house, she must 
make the first advances.” 

“ Very well. I’ll take in your answer, and 
Zoe will come to you, since you want to be 
coaxed.” 

“ Don’t let her come ! ” he cried vehe- 
mently ; “ I have said I would not, and 
that’s enough.” 

“ No indeed ; she shall not come to be re- 
fused by you, unmannerly fellow,” exclaimed 
Flora, getting down quickly, and departing in 
a rush of indignation. 


96 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


Without so much as turning his head after 
her, Samuel went slowly across to where a 
large square opening was cut as a window 
to the barn. He leaned there on his elbow; 
he was agitated and troubled, for while doubt- 
ful of being in the right as to the spirit of his 
refusal, he was quite sure that he had been 
wrong in the manner of it. He waited some 
time, fearing to hear Zoe’s light footstep, but 
she did not come. Then he wished that she 
would, so that he might explain things, and 
tell her with courteous regrets that he really 
had no time for pleasure trips, with haying 
time so near; and then, if she should insist, 
and say it was a pity to lose the lovely day, 
that he alone knew the road to the “ Seven 
Ladders,” that the trip was dangerous if made 
without a good guide, — ah well ! perhaps 
then he would yield, only to show her she 
would have done better to come herself in 
the first instance, and not to have sent Flora 
with a message. 

But no one came. He stood motionless 
and absorbed, listening to every sound for 
a long time. He could look straight before 
him into a corner of the bright, green field, 
which was mowed every day for one of the 
cows that could not leave the stable. He 
thought absently of this duty, and of a scythe 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


97 


which had been nicked yesterday; his con- 
fused thoughts floated in a kind of mist; he 
tried feebly as one in a dream to shake them 
off, and he felt something within him strug- 
gling against this enveloping mist. Suddenly 
his eyes grew fixed, his hands became rigid, 
and beads of perspiration stood out on his 
forehead. In the profound depths of his 
soul, which now had ceased to reason, he 
heard his heart cry the truth to him. He 
clutched the window ledge as if desperate; 
the new wine of his youth made his head 
swim. He did not know himself; he tried 
to speak, but could only mutter hoarsely. 

He w'as afraid of being seen in this state 
of violent excitement, and his eyes sought 
a hiding place. To the left and right the 
bales of hay were almost gone, having been 
used from for many months; but a single 
heap still rose almost to the ceiling; a ladder 
was leaning against it. Samuel climbed up 
on this, stumbling as he walked over the 
yielding mass, which sank with his weight. 
Then he flung himself down, hiding his face 
on his arms. 

Long did he lie there, great throbs shak- 
ing him from head to foot; then his heart 
seemed to dilate as if it would burst his 
breast, but all this agony was joy. It was 
7 


98 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

joy too that his temples beat with a sound 
of ringing bells, — joy too that dry sobs con- 
tracted his throat, and that the burning tide 
of a new sensation swept over him. All was 
changed, — everything. His new soul was 
better than the old one, more ardent, m.ore 
tender, and still of a tremble at the mystery 
of its own birth. His whole being was con- 
centrated in the effort to follow it as it rose 
from the inner depths on some indescribable 
wave. To feel, — that was enough now. To 
think, to fear, to question, to say, “ This is 
madness,” would come later. To-morrow, 
yes, to-morrow! His rare tears flowed burn- 
ing hot, and dropped between his fingers in 
this ecstasy of love, which was at the same 
time agony and despair. He felt himself 
lifted above the solid earth, and borne on 
an irresistible flood towards the abyss that 
demands the sacrifice of the whole being. 
But he could not think ; he could only re- 
peat with ecstasy, “Zoe, — darling I ” as if his 
love for her gave him the right to her, as if 
something of hers must belong to him. Her 
name at least, — that dear little name so like 
herself, — no one could prevent his saying it 
over and over, “ Zoe, — darling I ” — only a 
sound on the lips, an image floating before 
his eyes. That was to be his share in life, and 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


99 


with it he must be content. Piteous fate, — 
an ignored love ! But was it nothing to have 
had his hour of divine bliss, — and who could 
take that away? To have felt within his 
soul the eternal mystery of giving one’s all 
only to be a hundred-fold richer ! It is 
this hour which sees expand the marvellous 
flower, — the flower of life, — which even 
when faded perfumes the long stretch of 
years. An hour like this makes a simple- 
hearted peasant the equal of the greatest 
king or of the rarest intellectual giant. In it 
he drinks with them from that spring of joy, 
as common to all as are life and death. 


CHAPTER VII. 



|NE morning, — Adrienne had been five 


days at Gray Manse, and Jules was to 
leave on the morrow for a place in the neigh- 
borhood, to which he was called by business 
connected with his profession, — one morning 
Mr. Romanel awoke feeling badly, and at once 
sent for Miss Celanie. She came quickly, and, 
alarmed, proposed a doctor ; but after some 
deliberation decided that, as her father had 
a horror of drugs, and was, moreover, suffer- 
ing simply from dizziness and weakness, she 
would try first the effects of a certain herb 
tea which from time immemorial had been 
the panacea for all the Romanel ills. 

“ Send Clovis to me, he will keep me com- 
pany,*’ said her father as she left him. 

Mr. Clovis was the most sympathetic of 
nurses. With unfailing good nature he pitied, 
encouraged, showed anxiety, and knew when 
to keep silent and when to talk. His slip- 
pers with their felt soles never made the 
floor creak ; his kindly eyes took no note of 
the disordered room, and had not a way of 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


lOI 


saying, like so many eyes, “ You don’t look 
well in bed, — you are older and more de- 
crepit than I thought.” His cheeks of with- 
ered rose kept a smile always ready, and he 
almost persuaded you that it was healthy 
to be sick once in a while. 

“ You keep your room to-day?” said Mr. 
Clovis, sitting down by the front of the bed 
so that his cousin could see him and hear 
him without turning. “ You are very wise, 
for it is raining, and you don’t lose anything. 
The two girls will get very much bored if 
this keeps up.” 

“ How long will your nephew be gone?” 

“ A day, perhaps two ; he did not know, 
— he is to see the chief engineer and the 
directors.” 

There was a moment of silence, then Mr. 
Romanel said suddenly, and with much em- 
phasis, “ Clovis, your nephew pleases me.” 

“ I am so glad,” said Clovis, quite exult- 
ant. ‘‘And Adrienne? how do you like her? 
Charming, is she not?” 

The old man waved his hand impatiently. 
“ I was not speaking of Adrienne, but of your 
nephew; and if I tell you that I like him, I 
have my reasons.” 

“ Surely, surely,” said Clovis, with a feeling 
of self-reproach at having excited his patient ; 


102 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


and seeing that the light fell full on the bed, 
he arose to adjust the green curtains. 

“ Do leave the curtains alone ; why are 
you so fidgetty this morning, like an old 
woman?” Mr. Romanel exlaimed in his most 
fretful tones, half rising on his elbow and 
turning his head painfully so that his eyes 
could follow his cousin’s movements. “ I 
thought you would listen while I talked. But 
not a bit of it, — your thoughts are far off.” 

He was cross because Mr. Clovis had not 
asked, “What reasons?” for it was this he 
had been trying to lead up to. Without 
answering this tirade, Clovis sat down again, 
and began to swing his foot very slowly. 

“And Zoe, — how does she like your 
nephew?” the grandfather went on after a 
minute, tapping the coverlet with his dry fin- 
gers so as to secure his cousin’s attention. 

Mr. Clovis quivered at the peculiar tone of 
the question, and Mr. Romanel, seeing that 
he was at length understood, blinked his eyes 
in confirmation. 

“ Yes, yes; I want to know how she likes 
her cousin. I have my reasons, — I have my 
reasons.” He began to cough and laugh at 
the same time, losing his breath, poor old 
gentleman, in his spasmodic efforts to do 
both successfully. In the midst of it Miss 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


103 


Celanie appeared with the tea, and Mr. Ro- 
manel, who had an old man’s pleasure in a 
mystery, said to her as soon as he could 
speak : “ Go away, Celanie, I want to talk 
with Clovis. We have some matters of which 
I may tell you later, seeing that you have 
reached the age of discretion, — seventy 
years, Celanie. But what’s that, — seventy 
years? We shall find you a husband yet.” 

“ I don’t like such jokes, father,” said Miss 
Celanie, blushing faintly. 

If Celanie would have had me, that would 
have been settled long ago,” said Mr. Clovis, 
gravely, bowing towards his cousin, who 
sighed, shrugged her shoulders, and left the 
room. 

Why had she not smiled instead of sigh- 
ing? But if she had, she would not have 
been Miss Celanie. 

The worthy soul was a mass of good prin- 
ciples and small virtues, but she had never 
had any life or gayety, and had, as the years 
went by, become thoroughly steeped in mel- 
ancholy ; — a sort of soft gray melancholy, 
which hurt no one, which on some occasions 
did service as sympathy without the pain of 
feeling it, or on others as a reproach, without 
the trouble of expressing it, and which fos- 
tered the indolence of her mind by a pretence 


104 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


of taking life more seriously than the rest of 
mortals. 

“ Nonsense,” said her father, when she had 
disappeared. ‘‘ You are going to make her 
even more sentimental than she is. And 
what would you have done with her, pray? 
She was fifty and you sixty when you first 
began to think of this. No, no, you are bet- 
ter off as you are. I have had three wives, 
and I can speak with authority; you are 
master of yourself and your money, — you 
can leave it to whom you like.” 

He stopped, having started the conversa- 
tion in the direction he wanted it to take. 
He had a fixed idea, but unhappily Mr. 
Clovis did not follow his lead. He was 
contented to shake his head, — to twist his 
fingers in all sorts of ways around his knees, 
as if he were seeking some new methods of 
basket weaving. 

“ I think she likes him very well,” said the 
grandfather, taking up the broken thread. 

“They are very good friends,” said Clovis. 

“ Zoe and your nephew? ” 

“ They have a great deal to say to each 
other. Jules is an excellent young man, reli- 
able, responsible, and very industrious.” Mr. 
Clovis went on, warming to his subject, “ He 
is bound to make his way. For my part, if 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


05 


the thing could be arranged, I should be only 
too happy. We are old, we may at any 
moment be snatched away. I should like 
to see this before I go, — to see Zosette in 
no danger of wasting the springtime of her 
youth as her aunt did, — as I did, to speak 
frankly.” His voice in pronouncing the pet 
name he had given Zoe trembled with ten- 
derness, and his eyes moistened. 

“Even so,” said the grandfather; “she is 
not a relative of yours, or hardly one, — a 
fourth cousin once removed.” 

“ She is my one ewe lamb,” said Mr. Clo- 
vis, in a low tone, as if talking to himself. 

“ She will get nothing from you after your 
death, unless you have made a will. But you 
would not want to set aside your own 
nephews and nieces. Have you thought of 
this, Clovis? Do you think of it? At your 
age, your affairs should be all in order.” 

“ Be easy, that ’s all done.” 

There was another long moment of silence 
after this. Mr. Clovis, leaning back in his 
chair, was turning over in his mind his tes- 
tamentary gifts, and Mr. Brutus Romanel 
was wondering if he had been named as 
•executor. 

“ Poor Clovis ! we shall miss him when he 
is gone,” thought this immortal of ninety- 


I06 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

eight. Then, with the tenacity of his mind, 
as clear as ever, and more obstinate, he came 
back to his first idea. 

“ I should be willing to do something for 
your nephew. The young man needs some 
one to give him a start, and that takes money. 
Only the other day he was telling me of his 
plans, and he says Electricity is the science 
of the future. Locomotives are about done 
with. I shall have seen them born and die, 
and fuss enough was made over them in the 
beginning but now it is electricity which 
rules the hour. But to make plants or to 
get up the apparatus costs money.” 

“Are you going to give him some?” 

“ I,” said the grandfather, a little sharply. 
“ You know I never lend except on security y 
— full value, — that ’s my principle. And 
what is electricity? A fluid, they say. You 
can’t give a fluid as security, — a fine guar- 
anty a fluid would be ! ” 

“ Don’t get excited, Brutus; that is bad for 
you.” 

“ But it’s your fault; you will talk, and not 
let me say what I want. This fellow is your 
nephew, and you love Zoe like a daughter. 
What I propose to give him is Zoe, and 
you can give them now, to one as to the 
other, what you proposed to give them in 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 10 / 

your will. It is perfectly simple, it is just ; 
and the taxes upon inheritance need not 
be paid. Now don’t you see? and what do 
you say?” 

“ But,” said Mr. Clovis, stroking his chin, 
** as the idea is so new to me I must think it 
over.” 

The old man raised himself impatiently, 
beat up his pillows, and turned his face to the 
wall. “ Now I should like to be alone. I 
must say, begging your pardon, that you 
have really tired me.” 

Alone under the shadow of his green cur- 
tain he smiled complacently at the project he 
had formed, — his last project; for he said 
to himself that after this one he would make 
no more plans. He would see this one suc- 
cessful, and then rest on his laurels. A week 
ago he had not wished to hear of Zoe’s being 
a young lady, to-day he wished to get her 
married. With him this was perfectly logi- 
cal ; not having been first to see that his 
granddaughter was growing up, annoyed at 
being less clear-sighted than Clovis upon this 
point, he now wished to be beforehand with 
him on some other. To hear him talk, you 
would have said that he was the only one to 
look after the child, to care for her future, 
and he thinks that all is done when he 


I08 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

brought his niece here, — that flighty girl, 
who laughs all the time, and puts everything 
out of place, because, forsooth, symmetry is 
no longer fashionable. While they are all 
napping, I’ll push things on, and I say, ‘Since 
Zoe has become a young lady, she must 
get married ! ’ Clovis has not thought of 
that, not he, — with all his fine speeches, he 
has done nothing.” There was still another 
reason. Jules Morier, discreet, self-pos- 
sessed, listening well, speaking with tact, 
had struck the fancy of the old man, and 
obtained a high place in his regard, touching 
a fibre which had something paternal in it. 
Mr. Romanel wished the young man every 
good, and had decided to help him by 
influencing his uncle’s will in his favor, and 
this combination of opposing interests which 
made them one and the same seemed to him 
marvellously sharp. “ What if Clovis should 
say that he will not give anything during his 
lifetime? Or Zoe may be stubborn. And 
Jules, — but no, Jules has common sense. 
But you must expect the unexpected. In 
that case they would be donkeys.” 

After having turned and re-turned all 
these schemes in his mind, he rang for Miss 
Celanie, who appeared in person to answer 
his call. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


109 


Good,” said her father, “ You are just 
the person I wanted. Sit down and listen.” 

It did not take long. In a quarter of an 
hour Miss Celanie had her lesson perfectly. 
Poor Miss Celanie, trembling with emotion 
and delight, listened with filling eyes, smiled 
a damp smile, her face lighting up, and her 
hands pressed one against the other in a ges- 
ture of ecstasy. 

Ah ! a love affair was to her, poor soul, 
like bread to the hungry. She had had two 
or three in her time, but nothing was left of 
them except a faded ivy leaf, a little sugar 
rose, and the tenderest memories. Her sen- 
timental turn had been strongly nourished at 
Brandenburg, and when she came back, an 
old maid fifty years old, to take care of her 
father, she had not outgrown it. She hid it 
carefully, afraid of being teased, and she had 
learned to live without any expression of her 
nature other than her frequent sighs, never 
making Zoe any confidences, owing perhaps 
to her reserve, learned as a governess, perhaps 
to the fact that Zoe could not enjoy poetry. 
With Flora, however, she chatted of all the 
marriages in the neighborhood, and through 
the old servant, who was kept informed by 
the postman, the road menders, and the 
farmer’s wife, she knew all the love affairs, 


no A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

what parents were inexorable, what girls had 
wept at the spring, what lad had in despair 
set out for Texas. Her one regret was that 
she could interfere in none of these delicate 
matters, — she who would have been charmed 
to be a fairy godmother to all sighing lovers. 
And now in their own house the delightful 
mystery was about to be born ; she could see 
it, touch it, and have a share in it. “ Nothing 
is done? The children know nothing of it? ” 

“ Not in the least ; you are the first to 
hear it.'’ 

“ I am sure their hearts understand each 
other, but they dare not confess it yet.” 

“Quite possible; try to find out for me 
just how they stand. Clovis thinks they are 
always talking together.” 

“Yes, but on indifferent subjects. But 
that ’s the way it begins. Later they will say 
less, a bashfulness will keep them apart.” 

Mr. Romanel looked at his daughter with 
a sarcastic smile, but he said nothing, fearing 
to lessen a zeal which so admirably served 
his plans. Miss Celanie went away with her 
father’s blessing, and many injunctions not to 
spoil everything by her eagerness to help. 
She was to be permitted to take Flora into 
her confidence if she thought best. 

Hardly touching the earth in her pleased 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


I 1 1 

excitement, Miss Celanie floated towards the 
culinary regions. “ Where are our young 
people, Flora? ” she asked, in a voice that 
was almost gay. 

“ At the Vouniards’. Miss Adrienne was 
looking at the rain, and seemed melancholy 
as a funeral ; so I proposed that they should 
go and churn, — it is churning day.” 

“ Did Mr. Jules go with the girls?” 

“Trust him for that. He never leaves 
them, unless it is to talk with Mr. Romanel, 
who seems so taken with him.” 

“ Flora,” said Miss Celanie suddenly. 

Flora looked around at her mistress, and 
saw a light in her blue eyes, on her shining 
forehead, and something important trembling 
in the ribbons of her cap. 

“Why, what is the matter?” she cried. 
Then, as it broke upon her, “ A wedding ! ” 

“ Not yet, not yet,” said Miss Celanie, wag- 
ging her head. “ Think of all that can hap- 
pen. We are willing, and the children love 
each other. It ’s too good to be true. Some- 
thing is sure to happen.” 

“ Now what do you say that for? You are 
always willing to toll the bell a week before 
the funeral.” 

“ Zoe may fall sick; or suppose that Jules 
should break an arm or a leg in some acci- 


II2 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


dent, — an engineer’s life is so exposed,” said 
Miss Celanie, sadly. 

She liked the doleful emotion, the quicken- 
ing of the heart which the lugubrious thoughts 
produced. 

“Suppose the sky should fall, that would 
be the end of all marrying,” said Flora, shrug- 
ging her shoulders. “ You say they love 
each other. It has developed quicker than 
the measles. Now, Miss Celanie, frankly, 
don’t you think you imagine this?” 

“ Flora, your familiarity is too great,” said 
her offended mistress, going to the door. 

“ Perhaps it is,” said Flora. This was her 
only way of admitting her faults, but at the 
same time she promised herself to keep her 
eyes open, and to watch well. 


CHAPTER VIIL 



DRIENNE MORIER loved to be thought 


singular. That was her one vanity. As 
no startling eccentricities were possible, she 
did her best with small ones, giving fantastic 
touches to her dress, or developing all sorts 
of odd talents, cultivated at haphazard. She 
played on the castanets, declaring them the 
only instrument capable of expressing the 
trouble of the soul. She- could do a little 
carpentering, and having studied a book on 
chiromancy she told fortunes with a charming 
air of absolute faith. Wherever she went, she 
picked up something unusual, and then as- 
tonished her little circle. The most glorious 
of all her experiences was, when, passing one 
day with her brother through a village shoot- 
ing match, she had with great coolness bor- 
rowed a rifle and hit the bull’s eye, to her 
astonishment; for never before had she shot, 
except two or three times in their garden with 
Jules’s Flaubert rifle, and then she had inva- 
riably missed the mark. 

This rainy morning, bending over a great 
red bowl in which lumps of golden butter 


8 


I 14 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

were floating through the clear water, this 
Diana of the chase was learning a more 
peaceful art under the tuition of Madam 
Voumard. Tired and bored by the incessant 
downpour, she had quickly revived at the 
sight of the churn. 

“ Oh, if I could learn to make butter ! ” she 
exclaimed. “Won’t you be so kind as to give 
me a lesson. Madam Voumard? I will show 
you in exchange how to make candles.” 

“Candles?” repeated Madam Voumard, 
slightly distrustful of being laughed at. 

“ I learned how last year, with one of my 
friends who was going into Orange to live. 
There, it appears, they are strangely behind 
the age, and you can’t depend upon grocers. 
Ah ! do let me try, please ; it does n’t look 
hard.” 

As she spoke, she turned back her sleeves, 
sensible and housewifely in cut, buttoned to 
the elbow with little smoked pearl buttons, 
and showed her beautiful round arms, accus- 
tomed to every sort of household duty. 

“ I ’ll get you an apron,” said the farmer’s 
wife. 

The immense kitchen, somewhat dark, and 
paved with flags which were polished by the 
hob-nailed shoes, had for its ceiling the low 
spring of some Roman arches whose extrem- 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


15 


ities were supported by thick short pillars, 
and whose flattened curves met under a key- 
stone rudely sculptured into the semblance of 
a head. It was all very old, all stained with 
smoke; the pillars had had their corners 
knocked off, the bulging swell of their capitals 
much damaged, by the two hundred years they 
had held up the roof. But the low arcade was 
still fine in line, and well suited to the place. 
These strong curves, void of grace, made a 
fitting frame for the meals of peasants, who, 
with bowed shoulders and slow steps, came to 
sit on the benches of blackened wood around 
the table, spread with a medley of dishes. 
Under the second arch, hung from a great iron 
hook, was an immense copper boiler, black 
outside, but of delicate rose within. It was 
no longer used, and only left there as a sign 
of what the farm had once been in the days 
of cheese-making. Now, cheese was so un- 
profitable that Farmer Voumard preferred to 
use his milk to fatten calves for the butcher. 

In the sombre depths beyond the fireplace, 
the dishes on the dresser shone vaguely, and 
farther on, barely distinguishable, was a 
wooden staircase with its solid baluster orna- 
mented by cuttings in the shape of hearts and 
clover leaves, through which the light fell on 
the opposite wall in undecided figures. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


Il6 

Zoe, to whom no one was paying attention, 
had seated herself quite alone on the narrow 
stairs, a little blue, doubtless, because of the 
rain. She wished she was like Adrienne, so 
full of life and gayety, charming every one 
in turn. From her place on the stairs, with 
her head against the baluster, Zoe saw a 
picture framed in by one of the clover-leaf 
figures cut through the worm-eaten wood : 
the big red bowl filled with limpid water; 
the little pats of butter set out on the board ; 
two active hands, reddened by the cold water, 
moving swiftly to and fro ; the golden thread 
of a narrow bracelet whose fifty little bangles 
jingled against each other; and two blonde 
heads, the admiring babies, as rapturous as 
cherubs floating across some old canvas. 

The farmer’s wife was giving her lesson in 
good earnest, and Adrienne had thrown her- 
self into butter-making heart and soul, deter- 
mined not only to learn thoroughly, but gayly 
and quickly. Against the door in the shadow, 
the dullard Louis was leaning, a little curious 
and very shy, but betraying his presence from 
time to time by a burst of laughter. Adri- 
enne’s bracelet with its dancing figures and 
bangles drew him inch by inch like a mag- 
net, and already half of his great body had 
emerged from the shadow, when the young 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


ii; 

lady happened to glance at him, and he at 
once retreated. 

“ How awkward he is I ” thought Zoe. 
“ Samuel would not be as shy as all that.” 

Her thought of him seemed to invoke 
Samuel himself ; for the door opened at this 
moment, and he appeared on the sill, pausing 
there in astonishment. 

“ See, Mr. Samuel,” cried Adrienne, I am 
finishing my education. Don’t I make lovely 
butter? ” 

“ Now that it is all washed,” said Madam 
Voumard, “ we must stamp it. Won’t it in- 
terest you to make it into little hearts like 
that, and then eat them with our home-made 
bread? I have bread made fresh yesterday.” 

The good woman was both industrious and 
economical, — no one could have been more 
so ; but she knew how to honor her hus- 
band and her family by occasionally losing 
an hour gracefully, and offering of her best 
on her finest china. 

“ Don’t go away,” she said to Samuel ; “ we 
will take lunch all together. Call Louis, who 
is hiding there as if he had no manners. Ma- 
rianne, you run and call George, and,” whis- 
pering in her daughter’s ear, “ tell him to 
change his blouse ; he has worn the one he 
has on four days.” 


Il8 A QUESTION OF LOVE, 

Thus this good little gray hen gathered about 
her the brood which did her so much credit, 
all fine, vigorous children, and well brought 
up, too, from the blonde babies, still hanging 
to her skirts, to the tall eldest son, not yet in- 
dependent of her, but behind whose forehead, 
with its stamp of energy, were hiding many 
thoughts which he no longer shared with his 
mother. 

Samuel greeted Adrienne, shook hands with 
Jules, went through the usual ceremony of 
polite questions, and then began to look round 
him. “ Where is Zoe? ” he asked, after some 
hesitation. 

“ Here,” she answered from her perch. A 
sweet and gentle feeling crept into her lonely 
heart. For more than a quarter of an hour 
she had been sitting in her dark corner, and 
not one of them had so much as noticed her 
absence until Samuel spoke. 

“What are you doing there?” he asked, 
going towards the stairs. 

“ I did not know where my cousin had 
gone,” said Jules. 

“ You wasted no time in looking me up,” 
said Zoe, too much of a novice to hide that 
she was nettled. 

“ But, Cousin, I did not dream you were 
playing hide and seek.” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 1 19 

She shrugged her shoulders, but made no 
sign of moving. She liked Jules well enough, 
but he bored her sometimes; with all his 
polish, he was often maladroit, and had no 
conception of the fact that there are certain 
things so delicate that the merest touch ruins 
them forever. Zoe thought this might be 
owing to his familiarity with locomotives and 
other immense machines, and she felt some 
respect for him because of his work. 

“ Come now,” he said, guessing that she 
was vexed, and telling himself for the hun- 
dredth time since he had grown a moustache 
that young girls are mysterious creatures. 
“ Come now, and see a curious inscription 
that I have found at the back of the fire- 
place.” 

“What is this inscription?” asked Zoe, 
turning to Samuel. She was not going to 
drop him thus, just when he had dragged her 
from her hiding place, where she had been 
so sad and lonely; and to show her cousin 
that he must treat Samuel as the master of 
the house, she said, with a formal bow to him 
and a glance at Jules to emphasize the lesson, 
“ You will permit us to examine it, Samuel?” 

“ Certainly. I made it out once, long ago, 
but I hardly remember it.” 

Under the chimney-piece, at the back of 


120 


A QUESTION- OF LOVE. 


the hearth, a large plate of iron was set in the 
wall. The confused outlines of some orna- 
mentation in relief were traceable there, but 
incrusted with soot. A few strokes of the 
broom enabled them to see waving, pointed 
tongues, intended, doubtless, to represent 
flames, and above them a fantastic figure 
hovered in the air, a genie or an archangel 
waving a band, on which was an inscription in 
old Gothic characters. “ We fijtd — ” read 
Zoe, standing in the fireplace, stretching out 
her delicate neck, but crossing her hands 
behind her for fear of soiling them. 

“ We find life — where — where — others f 
Jules went on, stooping beside her, and like 
her standing with his feet in the ashes, his 
face close to the inscription. The better 
to see the next word, they both bent lower 
at the same moment, and Zoe's cheek brushed 
against the young man’s. Zoe instantly drew 
back, laughing, and began to rub, like a child, 
the spot where Jules’s moustache had lightly 
touched her. 

“A thousand pardons. Cousin,” said Jules, 
gravely. ^ In his opinion it would have been 
better form in Zoe to color, and show some 
sign of embarrassment. He was only half 
satisfied that any one should treat the touch of 
his moustache as a thing of no consequence. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


21 


“ It was not your fault,” said Zoe, “ it 
was mine. Try, please, to find out the last 
word.” 

‘‘ Where others death^' read Jules, taking 
up the study again, his back bent double, his 
hands on his knees. 

Good, but that has no sense. ‘ We find 
life where others deathl Oh ! it ’s poetry ; 
that explains why it has no sense,” said Zoe, 
naively. “ Come, Samuel, interpret this de- 
vice for us, if you can,” she added, turning. 

But Samuel had disappeared. 

At that moment Miss Celanie came into 
the kitchen. Her eyes immediately sought 
the two dear children she wished to unite,, and 
when she saw them under the chimney-piece 
she trembled with tender satisfaction. To- 
gether on the hearth, a happy omen! She 
forgot to remark that they were slightly 
smutched with soot, and to remember that, 
as a rule, people do not stand in a fireplace 
expressly to adopt a symbolic attitude. She 
was gifted with that sort of imagination, the 
antithesis of common sense, which seeks alle- 
gory in everything. 

“ Aunt,” cried Zoe, ** come and help us, 
please; see what Jules has discovered.” 

Miss Celanie went forward and stood on the 
hearth, then, seized with a sudden inspiration. 


122 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


she laid one hand on Jules’s arm, the other 
on Zoe’s wrist. 

The allegory was taking form, was becom- 
ing prophetic. Miss Celanie made a link 
between these two young lives. 

Chance ordained that Adrienne should turn 
at this instant and see the tableau, which at 
first made her laugh, for it savored of the 
ridiculous. She could only see one half of 
her brother’s face, which was cut off at the 
eyes by the chimney-piece. Miss Celanie 
directly opposite was smiling a blessing, her 
hands extended to right and left with perfect 
symmetry, and Zoe, embarrassed, was trying 
gently to pull away her arm from the detain- 
ing pressure of her aunt, whose attitude was 
becoming significant. 

The questioning glance of Adrienne’s eyes 
met an answer in Miss Celanie’s. There was 
a sudden interchange of impressions, like the 
flash of an electric spark. Miss Celanie, whose 
instinct in such matters was marvellous, knew 
that she was understood, and withdrew her 
hands to cross them before her as usual. 
Then appeared Jules’s head, as he, looking 
somewhat surprised but in usual correct form, 
dipped down lightly and came out from the 
chimney. Too polite to show impatience 
while he had a lady on his arm, he had 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


123 


nevertheless counted full thirty-two seconds, 
which had seemed longer, and had wondered 
if they were holding him there to have his 
photograph taken without his knowledge, and 
without his head as well. As soon as she was 
free, Zoe, blushing as only she could blush, 
up to her hair and through it, turned her 
back to Jules that he might not see her em- 
barrassment, and, hastily leaving the tableau, 
took refuge with Adrienne. The charm was 
broken, and the remnants of the symbol 
dispersed. As the fresh bread and butter 
and the flower-bedecked plates were on the 
table, they gave themselves up to the bucolic 
pastime of spreading slices of bread and but- 
ter. They tried to be merry, but each one 
had a secret preoccupation, and great gaps 
of silence, hard to bridge over, came in the 
conversation. Miss Celanie and Adrienne 
could not refrain from looking at each other ; 
a mutual magnetism attracted their eyes, 
which were forever meeting. By a silent 
plotting Jules had been put alongside of Zoe, 
and at every sentence they said to each other 
the old maid and the young one exchanged 
glances which said, “ Did you hear? ” This 
close spying deprived Adrienne of all powers 
of gayety. Zoe felt that something unusual 
was in the air, and as to Madam Voumard she 


124 


A QUESTIOA^ OF LOVE. 


was uneasy and displeased at Samuel’s absence. 
She suspected that his trouble had seized him 
again, and that he was hiding it somewhere. 

As soon as the visitors had left, she called 
George. “Try to find your brother,” she 
said, “ and ask him if he is not hungry. I 
will send him his lunch since he wants to 
avoid company.” 

Adrienne followed Jules to his room. “ I 
want to talk to you. I have a revelation to 
make,” she said laughing. 

What he did not understand, Jules did not 
often trouble himself much to guess at. He 
offered his sister a chair, and seated himself 
on the window-seat to wait until she should 
explain further. 

“ Ask a question ! ” she cried petulantly. 
“ What I have to say is hard enough ; you 
might help me a little. If Mamma was here 
I would not meddle in it; in fact, perhaps I 
should do better not to meddle with it as it 
is,” she said, with sudden reaction, rising as 
she spoke. 

Jules followed her to the door. As she 
was about to open it, he said, “ Your be- 
havior is in very bad taste.” 

“ I have changed my mind.” 

“ O, you will change it again ; I know 
you. What’s it all about?” 


A QUESTIOiV OF LOFE. 


125 


“Very well, I have had a revelation, as I 
just had the honor of informing you. I have 
seen something in the future.” 

“ That means you have had one of your 
ideas; they are not always bad, your ideas,” 
said Jules, more interested, and handing again 
to Adrienne the chair she had left. 

“ You are too kind. But I accept your 
statement, — I have had an idea.” 

“ Concerning whom? ” 

“ A poor young engineer who has n’t a 
cent, who is n’t a genius, but who will make 
his way if he is well backed.” 

“ Adrienne,” said her brother, reddening 
with temper, “if you talked to me so before 
strangers ! ” 

“Ah ! but just between ourselves. It goes 
without saying that before strangers I think 
your genius equals that of Mr. Eiffel.” 

Adrienne was charmed ; she always was 
when she had roused this correct young man, 
whom she pretended sometimes was not her 
brother, but a young bonze who had trans- 
migrated. 

“ You are insufferable,” he said, turning his 
back. 

“ Well, then, I shall relieve you of my 
presence,” she said, going once more to the 
door. 


26 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


But this time she stopped of her own ac- 
cord, her hand on the knob. “ You don’t 
want to know my idea then? 

“ I do very much.” 

“ Here it is,” said Adrienne, coming back. 

If you had had a single grain of feminine 
intuition, you would have guessed it long ago. 
I seized it in that way, on the fly, as it was 
floating in the air.” 

“ I have not your advantages,” he said, with 
somewhat heavy irony. 

“ No, but you have certain others. You 
are the type of a good young man; you will 
always inspire confidence, and, as I have said, 
you will make your way, but you must have 
help in the beginning.” 

“ I see what you are at,” he said, leaning 
back in his chair, and looking at a sort of 
misty streak which was formed on the ceiling 
by spots of dampness. “ We have a rich 
relation who might be willing, — I have 
thought of that myself” 

“ No,” interrupted Adrienne, “ it is not 
that. Our Uncle Clovis looks upon Zoe 
as his own child, and I am certain he is 
keeping his money for her; but I think he 
would do something, and gladly, for Zoe s 
husband.” 

Jules walked slowly to the window, his 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 12 / 

hands in his pockets, and stood looking out 
at the falling rain. 

“ Do you know what she said a little while 
ago,” he said, after a few moments’ contem- 
plation ; “ we were stooping together to see 
this inscription, then, as our faces came close 
together, I distinctly felt the end of my mous- 
tache brush her cheek, and when I asked her 
pardon, she answered, ‘ It was not your fault, 
it was mine.’ I must acknowledge that this 
hardly seemed to me the correct thing.” 

“ Dear little Miss Candor ! ” said Adrienne, 
laughing. “ If you loved Zoe half as much 
as I do, your proposal would have been made 
already. Mr. Romanel has taken a great 
fancy to you. Uncle Clovis only asks to do 
what Zoe wants in this as in everything, and 
Miss Celanie will be your ally.” 

“ You think so? ” 

“ I am certain, I have special information. 
You are in favor.” 

This did not astonish Jules Morier, who 
smiled with a radiant face, and affectionately 
put his arm around his sister’s waist. “ It is 
good of you to think of my future. Zoe is 
charming, I will make her happy ; for if I am 
not a genius, I am at least able to offer her 
guaranties of my character.” 

“ But you ought to love her,” said Adri- 


128 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


enne, throwing her head back, the better to 
see his face. 

“ Shall I confess,” he said dreamingly, 
“ you have revealed me to myself I do love 
her. I loved her before, it was latent ; now 
any latent cause never fails to develop its 
effects. You simply hastened the explo- 
sion.” 

“ The explosion ! ” repeated Adrienne, half 
ironically, half sadly. She said nothing more, 
but went to her room. Already she regretted 
having spoken to her brother. She loved 
Zoe with a protecting tenderness, — the ten- 
derness which among school girls the large 
ones often give to the little ones, to whom 
they play mother; and, by a strange revul- 
sion of feeling, Adrienne at this moment 
took sides against Jules, saying to herself that 
she would help Zoe defend herself if defence 
should be the order of the day. There was 
some little remorse in it all. The Morier 
family had a strong feeling of clanship, a 
powerful weapon in families which have no 
other. If they sometimes told one another 
unpleasant truths, — angels themselves, lodged 
eight in a small flat, would sometimes ex- 
change sharp speeches, — they at least up- 
held each other against all the world, helping 
the common cause with eagerness, and in 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


129 


everything that happened quick to discover 
any possible advantage which might ac- 
crue to a Morier. Adrienne knew that her 
brother was one of the mediocre works of 
art which need handsome frames to set 
them off, and in the Romanel family he 
would find this frame to perfection. At the 
first moment she had only seen this side of 
the question, but two minutes later she felt 
that she had committed treason. 

“ Ah well ! no harm is done as yet,” she 
said to quiet her conscience. “ If I see 
that Zoe shows the least repugnance, or 
they try to force her against her will, then 
I shall change my tactics, I shall fire upon 
Jules.” 

George Voumard, breathless from running 
in search of his brother, was just going back 
unsuccessful, when, as he reached the thresh- 
old, he turned his head once more, and saw 
at the end of the pasture path Samuel’s tall 
figure behind the hazel-nut hedge. 

He went into the kitchen to say to his 
mother, “ Samuel is up there among the 
hazel bushes. I think he is mending the 
wall. Shall I take his lunch to him?” 

I ’ll go myself,” said the. mother. “ Mari- 
anne, you see to the potatoes.” 

9 


130 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

She took a covered basket, which she rested 
on her hip, and started. Instead of climbing 
up the wagon road, seamed with tracks, she 
went over the fields, which was what she 
generally took care not to do, declaring it 
was a sin to trample the grass God had given. 
But now she did not want Samuel to hear 
her coming. As she no longer saw him be- 
hind the bushes, which were ranged in two or 
three parallel hedges, she began to wonder 
whether she should bear to the left or the 
right, when, picking her way through the 
alders, the slender stalks of madder-root, and 
the briers which caught her skirts, she almost 
fell over Samuel, seated on some fallen stones, 
his elbows on his knees and his face in his 
hands. 

At the rustle of the crackling underbrush, 
he rose with a start, as if to flee ; but seeing 
his mother, and not knowing how to face her, 
he picked up his shovel, which was beside 
him in the thick grass. 

“ I have brought you your lunch,” said his 
mother, lifting the towel which covered the 
basket. 

“ You take too much trouble,” said he. 

“ You could have spared me this by stay- 
ing to lunch with all of us. What bee in 
your bonnet induced you to run off so.” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE, 13 i 

Her tone was not severe, and she had laid 
her hand on her son’s shoulder. 

Our cows had knocked down this bit of 
wall, and were doing mischief in Simon’s rye 
field. Look at it. I came up to mend it.” 

“ Good ; but that might have waited an 
hour or so. You take too much care on 
your shoulders.” 

However, she did not dwell on this. She 
spread out the towel and placed on it the 
bread and coarse cheese starred all over with 
holes, and then in a thick, ribbed glass she 
poured his wine. 

“ Eat now,” she said ; and, like a true 
peasant, thought, “ If he does n’t eat, he is 
in trouble.” 

Samuel took a mouthful, and tried to swal- 
low it by washing it down with a sip of wine. 
His mother’s eyes were fixed on him. 

“ That does n’t go down,” said she, shak- 
her head. 

Throwing the bread and the knife as far as 
he could, Samuel let his head fall on his arms 
again, hiding his face from her. The mother 
stooped to reach the knife, and put it care- 
fully in the basket, knowing that the grass 
has a bad habit of hiding anything that is 
forgotten on it, and so securely that it is al- 
most impossible to find it again. 


132 


A QUESTION OF LOVE, 


“ Are you in real trouble? ” she asked in a 
sympathizing tone, but with a little smile on 
her lips, for it did not seem credible that her 
handsome Samuel could long be unsuccessful 
in love. As he did not answer, she went on, 
“ If only we knew what it is about, we might 
help you, your father and I.” 

He straightened himself up slowly, passed 
his hands over his face, and turned to his 
mother, who was alarmed by his pallor. 

“Thank you, you can do nothing,” he said. 

“ Are you sure. If it is a girl in Gex, your 
father will write.” 

“ No, thanks, you can do nothing.” 

Then suddenly, with the impetuous violence 
of young sorrows, which have not as yet 
learned to restrain themselves, his broke its 
bounds. He threw himself on the grass, put 
his head on his mother’s knees, and sobbed 
as if his heart would break. Happy is he 
who still has a mother on whose knees to 
weep, and who has around him the tall mute 
trees, which will never betray his trouble to a 
mocking world ! 

“ Don’t cry, don’t cry,” said his mother, 
leaning over him ; and, with an arm around 
his neck, her other hand tried to raise the 
brown head so overcome with sorrow. “ I 
don’t know what it ’s all about, since you will 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


133 


tell me nothing. But it will all be right ; see 
if it is n’t. Don’t cry, Samuel. She must be 
hard to please, if she won’t have you.” 

“You don’t know, you don’t know,” he 
cried. “ Don’t try to give me hope, — I can’t 
help listening to you.” 

“ Good heavens ! Is she a princess? ” cried 
his mother impatiently. “ Even if you were 
thinking of a girl above you, it would be un- 
fortunate, according to my ideas ; but even 
that has happened, — a girl of the middle class 
has married a peasant. We have brought 
you up well, and you are handsome.” She 
went on, with tender pride, “ And perhaps 
your aunt will leave you something. At all 
events, we have worked hard, your father and 
I, and shall have some few pennies to divide 
among our children. You are quite old 
enough to be set up for yourself ; say but 
a word, and you will get a loan which will 
enable you to buy.” 

“Mother,” said Samuel, rising suddenly; 
“ accept the fact that there is no hope for me. 
I would be crazy not to see it. I was not to 
see it at once ; but you know, at first, you 
keep thinking that perhaps some miracle — ” 
He mechanically turned to his work, strik- 
ing away the soil from a large stone which he 
was to lift from its hole, and put on the wall. 


134 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


“ So,” said the mother, you did hope?” 

“ Yes,” he said, lowering his head, — “even 
to-day for five minutes, she spoke to me so 
sweetly.” 

His mother looked at him, gave a startled 
exclamation, lifted her hands, and let them 
fall again. “ That city miss ! ” she cried. 

“What’s that?” he said, almost roughly 
grasping his spade handle in both hands. 
“ That Miss Adrienne? ” 

“No? then I am mistaken. I don’t know 
what I could have been thinking of,” said the 
mother, forcing a smile ; “ but then — ” She 
interrupted herself, not daring to pronounce 
the name that rose in her mind. Then, as if 
one could undo an evil by not speaking of it, 
she made Samuel a sign of silence, and started 
home. 


CHAPTER IX. 



HE time would have hung heavy on 


X Adrienne Morier’s hands had it not 
been for this new interest which was devel- 
oping under her eyes, like a seed we plant, 
and which slowly thrusts up its green stem 
while we look on, impatient. Three weeks 
had slipped slowly into that silent land 
where sleep all the weeks and months of 
the past. Nothing had happened to make 
any day more remarkable than any other. 
They had gone to the woods, or on rainy 
days had turned out all the bureau draw- 
ers in the house to hunt for antiquities over 
which she went into ecstasies, — old cush- 
ions, old fans, of the days of the Revolution, 
painted with balloons, or the “Chariot of 
France” carrying the Three Estates, and 
guided by an owl, — old draperies of flowered 
silk, old robes with necks cut so outrageously 
low that they needed to be filled in with 
clouds of tulle before they could be worn. 
This was all very amusing, and when they 
had donned one of these narrow skirts, much 


136 A QUESTION OF LOVE 

like a scabbard to a sword, one of the short 
waists with the sash up under the arms, — 
when they had tied around the ankle the 
black ribbons of their slippers, and taken a 
fan, — they put on their heads some inde- 
scribable hat of no matter what age, and 
walked in this guise through the house. Zoe 
could not understand the pleasure that Adri- 
enne found in turning herself into the por- 
trait of her grandmother; for the sense of 
antiquity was lacking in her, doubtless be- 
cause she had been so saturated with old 
things ever since her infancy, and antiques 
only please us when they are old enough to 
have become a novelty again. 

The two girls were never apart for a min- 
ute of the day. When the weather was good, 
they did needlework in the afternoon under 
the lilacs, in company with Miss Celanie, 
who was always trying, by some chance of' 
conversation, to discover Zoe’s innermost 
thoughts, while Adrienne in her secret heart 
was longing for a cup of tea. But “ five 
o’clock tea” was an institution entirely un- 
known at Gray Manse, — as much so as the 
comfortable willow chairs in which she might 
take her graceful ease, or the hammocks 
whose very name she would not have dared 
to pronounce before Miss Celanie. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 1 37 

One day the old lady, after many circum- 
locutions, and talking to Adrienne rather 
than to Zoe, ventured to speak of marriage, 
to see if the conversation could be guided 
into that channel. Her father had told her 
to prepare Zoe for certain possibilities, but 
Miss Celanie found her task difficult, and all 
the more so because she had no help in it. 
For, strange to say, Adrienne, full of life on 
every other subject, grew silent and dreamy 
whenever the word marriage was pronounced. 

“ O, as for me,” said Zoe, “ it would bore 
me very much to be married. Still, I see 
that it is constantly done. If Cousin Clovis 
would ask me, I should be more than happy. 
Now why is that so stupid? ” she asked, see- 
ing that Adrienne was biting her lips to keep 
in her laughter. 

‘‘ Generally people marry others of their 
own age,” said Miss Celanie, a little dryly. 
“ If your cousin had wished to marry, he 
would not have chosen a young girl like you.” 

Zoe blushed deeply. “ I should like to 
know why you are making me talk, — for 
you are making me. Aunt; I saw you give a 
sign to Adrienne.” 

Adrienne raised her head, and held her 
needle suspended in the air over a flower she 
was working on her linen. “ Well, darling,” 


138 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

she said, “ do talk to us of what your beau 
ideal of a husband is.” 

“ I used to think of that sometimes,” said 
Zoe, drawing close to Adrienne with an af- 
fectionate little movement, and laying her 
head against her shoulder as she loved to do ; 
“ but since you came, I don’t think of it at 
all. I have not time. Naturally, I want him 
to treat me well, — there are such dreadful 
stories in the papers about husbands who 
maltreat their wives. Grandfather was ar- 
guing the other day that wives like to be 
beaten, — as if that were possible ! It is true 
though,” she went on, laughing, “ that I have 
never been beaten, and can have no taste for 
it. But one thing I should like,” she went 
on, after a thoughtful pause, in which she 
seemed to be evoking a theoretical husband. 
“ I should like him to be away very often. 
When he is away, it will be so nice, — just 
like before.” 

“ Zoe,” said her aunt, shaking her head, 
“ people don’t get married that it may be 
‘ like it was before.’ ” 

“ Oh ! I know,” said Zoe, more gravely, 
“there are duties; there’s the house to 
keep. Flora has already given me some 
receipts.” 

Miss Celanie judged that this preliminary 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 139 

conversation might be considered as suffi* 
cient, and she announced to her father that 
the way was clear. 

Mr. Romanel had since his illness been so 
irritable and impatient, that he wanted to 
bring things to a crisis at once. Zoe’s mar- 
riage had become his one idea, and it was 
the sole subject of his talk with Mr. Clovis. 
He discoursed endlessly of its most trifling 
circumstance, insisting that Jules was anx- 
ious to settle the matter, but that Adrienne 
restrained him. He spent much ingenuity 
in devising tetc-d~tetes for the young couple; 
and the pretexts he used were so transparent 
that nothing but Zoe’s unconsciousness saved 
her from seeing through them. It was Miss 
Celanie’s duty to give him each day a de- 
tailed report of the progress of the matter; 
and as she was as much interested as he, 
their consultations were interminable. 

Jules Morier, who had come to Gray 
Manse with the intention of presenting him- 
self to his Uncle Clovis and then leaving 
immediately, had received an unlimited in- 
vitation. He came and went as suited his 
business engagements, and when by good 
luck he secured a temporary position on a 
railroad line that was being built in the neigh- 
borhood, — one of its engineers having been 


140 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

taken sick, — he hired a horse and came back 
each evening to see his sister. 

Entirely persuaded that he loved Zoe, — 
really loving her perhaps, with a tiny flame 
which had nothing volcanic in its nature, — 
and feeling in the air the currents which were 
carrying him along, he went correctly for- 
ward to his end, stopping at every stage in 
the proper place, resisting the bad taste of 
any haste, and taking with great judgment 
the chances afforded him. Zoe liked her 
cousin’s society, and said so openly. She 
generally took his part when Adrienne teased 
him. She liked his attentions, and she wore 
at her throat a flower from the bouquets he 
bought; once she even took his arm while 
walking, because Miss Celanie made her a 
sign to accept it, but that way of walking 
seemed to her singularly inconvenient. She 
was entirely at ease with him ; and when he 
ventured upon some tender little speech, she 
thought he was joking, and paid him back 
in his own coin. 

Finally, Adrienne, who was noting all these 
symptoms, and whose conscience spoke every 
day in a way that was anything but agree- 
able, became nervous, decided that something 
must be done, and begged Jules to declare 
himself. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


I4I 

The hay-making, always late on the moun- 
tains, had begun in the second week of July. 
On all sides was heard the sound of carts 
rolling over the barn floors, and in the even- 
ing through the tranquil air came the vibra- 
tion of the scythes that were being sharpened 
at the thresholds. Animation and life reigned 
round Gray Manse after three o’clock in the 
morning, for the farmer started then with 
his sons and two farm hands to reap by the 
light of the moon the grass all heavy with 
dew. 

Those hours so full of the mysterious 
silence of the night, yet beautiful already 
with the promise of the dawn, were for Sam- 
uel the happiest of all the day. Going to his 
field, he would let the others outstrip him, 
and would linger behind alone with *his 
dreaming. He turned sometimes to look at 
the' house with its vast roof and gables, and 
its closed shutter, behind which Zoe was 
sleeping. Over the slope, still gray with 
dew, which rose above the great black wood, 
the cows were slowly wending down, tinkling 
their bells softly. The sky was of palest 
gray, against which the fading moon was 
sinking, and the morning star shone pearly 
white. All this gray and all this pale color 
made an exquisite picture, — a landscape 


142 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


seen in a tender dream. At times a warning 
note, the good morning of some bird scarcely 
wakened, came from between the branches, 
and from other nestlings who wished to sleep 
on would rise a light peeping of reproach, 
then all was quiet again. Ah ! that air of 
early morning, how it strengthens and re- 
freshes the heart as the healing balm of its 
great silence spreads softly over the wounds 
we bear ! Then it is vain to think of our 
sorrow, and when the first lark rises from 
the furrow, and darts, straight as an arrow, 
into the sky, we tremble with her for simple 
joy at living. 

The farmer, who for some time had seen 
his son’s sadness and preoccupation, left him 
behind without comment, the more willingly 
as Samuel was not backward in his work. 
When they reached the field bordered by 
the tufted hazel bushes and the hawthorns, 
whose sprays were thrust up against the sky 
like pencil strokes drawn there, the reapers 
got into line, the farmer at their head, fol- 
lowed by Samuel, who swung his scythe the 
widest and made the largest swath. Then 
came the two workmen, then George, and 
last of all Louis, who liked this post, as here 
he could puff at his ease without fearing the 
point of a scythe on his heels. The first 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 1 43 

reaper described a great semicircle with his 
scythe among the thick high flowers, whose 
colors could not as yet be distinguished, and 
as they fell pell-mell before it, all the vig- 
orous arms were stretched forth, ready to 
swing when their turn came. In the trans- 
parent twilight the curved glitter of the 
blades beat a measured tune, as they whistled 
through the tender wet stems. The swaths 
stretched out regular and even, like ripples, 
which the dawn touched with delicate color. 
From time to time some one stopped to whet 
the dull steel with the stone which he drew 
from its wooden case hung from his belt; 
it was passed two or three times, shrieking, 
across the edge of the blade, and then the 
work was begun again, after a word or two 
about the luxuriance of the grass, or the 
number of mole-hills this year. 

When the sun pierced with his first ray 
the fringe of pine woods at the top of the 
fields, suddenly the dew sparkled, white mists 
rose from the earth and floated over the 
swaths, like a shroud for the dead flowers. 
It was then that they stopped to look at 
the heavens, and to consult the clouds, and 
to see if from the depths of the valley the 
fog was rising. If the clouds were red in 
the east, or if the fog hung below them in 


144 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


trailing bands, they stopped reaping. Use- 
less to cut any more, it would not dry,” the 
farmer would say. Let us go see if the 
breakfast is ready.” 

And when he went down through the field, 
Samuel with his heavy scythe on his shoulder 
was always gayer than when he went up, not 
because of any arguments he had found, 
nor because hope had come to him, but 
work, our benefactor, had made him forget 
his pain. 

The other delightful moment of the haying 
time was the evening, when, supper over, 
the scythes sharpened, there was nothing 
further to do. Then the men sat in a circle 
around the doorway, the women appeared 
from time to time on its sill, and in the dark 
background gleamed the lamp lighted in 
the kitchen. 

Adrienne and Zoe, whose presence was 
now a matter of course, would come on tip- 
toe, because of the damp grass, wrapped in 
soft shawls, and seat themselves on the end 
of a bench close together to listen to all that 
was said. The twilight as it darkened simpli- 
fied the drawing of the group, the silhouette 
of the bare heads, or the broad hats, and the 
shoulders leaning forward. It was like one 
of Millet’s pictures strongly drawn, all in out- 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


145 


line, and the sketch filled in with a uniform 
shade. Sometimes, upon a whispered word 
from Zoe, George rose, went into the house, 
and came out with two accordeons. 

One of the farm hands knew the same 
tunes as he. Seated opposite each other, one 
foot crossed over the knee to support the 
instrument, and the other used to beat time, 
they looked at each other fixedly, then, with- 
out a word, one of them would strike up a 
melody which the other would follow, after 
some feeling of his way. In the group no 
one spoke. 

Those handsome tall fellows, tired and 
quiet, rested their elbows on the knees and 
listened to the music, while they watched the 
rising moon, which seemed to gallop along on 
the clouds. Sometimes one of them would 
rise and seize Marianne to take a turn or two 
of a waltz with her. The young girl, slender 
as a reed, with her short skirts swelling out 
around her, turned lightly on the tips of her 
toes, and the lad, his heels ringing against 
the stone flags, would make his partner do 
all sorts of unheard of steps with a gravity 
which gave to the slow waltz the grace of a 
rustic minuet. But when on the road was 
heard the gallop of a horse, the accordeons 
stopped in the middle of a tune, every one 
10 


146 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


rose, and after a short good night disappeared 
in the shadow. 

“ Go and take Mr. Morier’s horse, you 
boys,” the farmer would say. Samuel never 
went. The obliging George, guessing at 
some of his brother’s repugnance for this 
office, undertook it each evening, for Louis 
was much too lazy to do it in his turn. 
The two young girls, with their arms around 
each other’s waist, would go to the stable door 
just as the horseman arrived, to greet him with 
“ Good evening; is it you, Jules? ” 

“Your supper will soon be ready. Cousin; 
let us take a short walk while you wait, it is 
so fine this evening.” 

This particular morning before starting 
out, Jules, spurred on by his sister, had asked 
for an interview with Mr. Romanel. 

“ Let him come, — ask him in,” cried the 
old man. 

“ But, father, you have not breakfasted ; 
you are weak,” objected Miss Celanie. 

“ I shall eat with better appetite once he 
has spoken. Ah ! I thought he never was 
going to speak. He would have done it 
sooner, if it had not been for his sister. Go, 
my daughter, and tell him to come.” 

Miss Celanie was dying to be asked to 
come back once her message was delivered. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 1 47 

“ You won’t need me, father? ” 

“Need you? No. Ah, curiosity! No, no, 
I have no need of you.” He wanted to keep 
to himself the longed for pleasure of this 
moment. 

When Jules came in, the old man was 
seated very upright in his arm-chair, stroking 
his long beard with one hand. The excite- 
ment of his waiting had revived the light in 
his dull eyes, and brought a flush to his 
ivory-tinted skin. 

“ Well, my young friend, so you wished to 
speak to me,” he said, pointing to a chair. 
He could hardly hide his impatience ; he 
wanted to shriek, “ Come to the point, to 
the point!” while Jules, always formal, was 
making inquiries as to how he had passed 
the night. 

“ I slept well, thank you Was it to know 
that? ” 

“That,” said Jules politely, “and some- 
thing else.” He had carefully prepared his 
little speech, and he had now arrived at pre- 
cisely the right moment for reciting it. 

“ During the several weeks,” he began, 
“ that your hospitality has permitted me to 
spend under your roof, I must have been 
blind not to have seen the value and the 
charms of your granddaughter. Miss Zoe; 


148 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


and your unfailing friendliness to me has 
made me hope. What’s the matter, sir? 
What is it?” he broke off in alarm. 

The old man had thrown himself back in 
his chair, from his contracted throat came 
a painful sob, while two or three slow tears 
fell from his eyes. “ Nothing,” he said with 
an effort. “It is emotion. Wait a moment.” 

Jules brought him a glass of water. 

“ Thanks. Thanks ; it ’s over already. I 
have earnestly wished for this, I confess it,” 
the old man went on in a firmer voice. “ I 
said from the first that it was sure to happen. 
Clovis never would have seen it. Yes, Zoe 
is sweet, — a good little thing whom I love 
very much.” 

His voice broke again ; he closed his eyes 
as they filled with tears. And she would be 
happy, this child, and it would be her old 
grandfather who had made her so. 

“Go on,” Mr. Romanel said, forcing him- 
self into his upright posture, but holding 
fast to the arms of his chair with his dry 
and trembling old fingers. 

“ I was saying,” said Jules, who could not 
bear to cut short a well turned phrase, — “I 
was saying that your unfailing friendliness to 
me made me hope for a favorable answer to 
the request that I respectfully submit to you. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


149 


I love Miss Zoe; and I have the honor of 
asking you for her hand in marriage.” 

Mr. Romanel sat absorbed an instant. He 
loved the situation, and remembered again 
the same sort of moments, when suitors — 
some timid, others sure of themselves, or 
others again bold and eager — had asked 
for his daughters. There had been one in 
particular, Robert, who had been positively 
impertinent He had been after Julie, — yes, 
in ’43 or ’44. And Julie had wanted him, 
foolish thing, — a man without a penny I 
Jules waited with some anxiety till the old 
man should rouse himself from his dreams. 
He at last decided to speak again. “ If you 
will allow it, I will plead my own cause with 
Miss Zoe.” 

That’s right; speak to her this evening. 
For my part, I say yes, most heartily.” 

“Thank you,” said Jules, m a voice touched 
with feeling, and pressing the hand the old 
grandfather held out. 

This evening Adrienne and Zoe, accompa- 
nied by Jules, were walking slowly along the 
moonlit road looking at their black shadows 
stretching before them, and talking but little, 
when Adrienne suddenly became afraid of 
taking cold, and ran towards the house to 
get a wrap for her head. Zoe, absent-minded. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


150 

and humming the tune the accordeons had 
been playing, was not in the least embar- 
rassed at the tete-a-tete. She hardly knew 
they were alone, until Jules drew near to her 
and took her hand. As a cousin he might 
have taken her hand without alarming her, 
but there was something in the pressure of 
his fingers which displeased her. 

“Dear Zoe,” he said in a low tone, “I 
want to speak to you.” 

“ And what prevents you ? ” said she. 

“ I have a great favor to ask of you.” 

“Of me?” 

“ Zoe, your grandfather has given me per- 
mission to ask you if you could consent 
to be my wife.” 

She stood dumfounded. This, then, was 
the mystery she had felt in the air for so 
long! To marry! Heavens! what an idea, 
what a change ! But to marry Jules was to 
be Adrienne’s sister; that would be charm- 
ing. She stopped to think. “What did 
Grandpapa say?” 

“ He answered me, ‘ For my part, I say 
yes most heartily.’ ” 

“ He loves you very much, I know. I also 
love you very much, Jules,” she added, with 
an affectionate little shake of the head. “But 
that ’s not all ; getting married is very serious. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 15 i 

Talk it over with me a little, and help me to 
decide.” 

Jules was astonished at the turn the con- 
versation was taking. He imagined that 
when a young girl admitted, “Jules, I love 
you,” the important word had been said. It 
is true, she had added “very much.” Jules 
would rather have had her leave that out. 
He did “ talk it over,” however, and said 
everything that came into his mind that was 
tender and persuasive. He was imaginative, 
eloquent even, and Zoe listened with affec- 
tionate indulgence. 

“Now, Zoe, answer me, will you consent?” 

She hesitated for some moments, her head 
on one side, her hands interlaced. “ Yes, I 
will,” she finally said, in a resolute tone. 

“Thank you, dear Zoe,” murmured Jules. 

He took her hand, passed it under his 
arm, then, leaning over his little sweetheart, 
he imprinted — O so delicately ! — a kiss 
upon her cheek. Zoe started as if some 
one had stabbed her. She snatched away 
her hand, and made a step backwards trem- 
bling violently. 

“Well,” she exclaimed, “that’s a little too 
much ! ” and she looked about her, as if 
seeking a way of escape, while a nervous 
sob shook her breast. “ I never would have 


152 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

suspected you of such a thing, Jules ! ’* She 
was almost crying. 

“ But, Zoe,” said he in great consternation, 
“that is quite proper, I assure you.’* 

“ Proper ! ” she cried. 

“ Perfectly. Ask whom you like. The 
other day,” he went on, with remarkable tact, 
“the other day when my — my moustache 
touched your cheek, you only laughed.” 

“That was very different,” cried Zoe, blush- 
ing and indignant. “ That was an accident, 
but this you did on purpose.” 

It was hard to deny his having done it on 
purpose. He crossed his arms and looked at 
Zoe ; she crossed hers and looked at him. 

“ This is a nice beginning,” she said. 
“ Listen to me, Jules; we are not going to 
quarrel, we never have. I forgive you, but 
never do it again.” 


CHAPTER X. 


TN the great panelled room on the ground 
floor, the assembled family was waiting. 
Mr. Romanel had said to Miss Celanie and to 
Cousin Clovis, “ I authorized him to speak 
to Zoe this evening, and we shall know the 
long and short of it before we sleep, — un- 
less his sister puts a spoke in his wheel,” he 
added, with bitterness, for he had a fixed 
idea that Adrienne was doing all she could 
to thwart his plans. 

Just as he spoke, Adrienne came in breath- 
less ; she had run up the avenue in order to 
leave her brother with Zoe, and somewhat 
agitated, and in search of some one to speak 
to, had seen through the crack of the door 
a thread of light. She came thoughtlessly 
into the midst of the family council. On the 
large walnut table shone the every-day lamp, 
the one with its high standard in the shape 
of an Egyptian obelisk ; but two others, 
beautiful bronze vases, which were rarely lit, 
were on the mantel-piece, their ground-glass 
globes reflected in the mirror. The unusual 


154 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


illumination astonished Adrienne, who paused 
on the threshold, somewhat alarmed by the 
solemnity of their attitudes. Mr. Romaiiel 
held himself perfectly stiff and erect in his 
arm-chair, having near him Miss Celanie 
equally erect, but throbbing with emotion, 
and quite certain that some catastrophe would 
occur at the last moment. On the other side 
was seated Mr. Clovis, who stopped swinging 
his foot whenever he thought of it. Flora, 
standing in the background with folded arms, 
looked displeased, and might have said, if 
she had formulated her thoughts, “ It ’s all 
got up by them,” and yet would have been 
embarrassed to explain her feeling. 

“ Where ’s Zoe? ” asked Mr. Romanel in a 
severe tone, as he saw Adrienne. 

“ At the foot of the garden with Jules, — I 
have just left them,” she answered. 

She felt the air about her vibrating with a 
sort of mute excitement which emanated from 
each one. A move, a guarded allusion, or 
even a smile, would have brought them relief ; 
but Adrienne, hurt by the unfriendly tone 
Mr. Romanel always used in talking to her, 
made her way to a corner, and sat down, 
without adding a word. “ I have a right to 
be here and to wait with them, since it con- 
cerns my brother,” she thought. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


155 


Mr. Clovis politely changed his place so as 
not to turn his back to Adrienne, and sent 
her a smile, and a little sign of the head. 
No one broke the silence until the sound of 
unequal footsteps — some gliding and quick, 
the others longer and firmer, — resounded 
under the vaulted hall. 

“ Here they come,” said Mr. Romanel. 

Miss Celanie put her hand to her heart. 

Mr. Clovis’s green slipper beat the air in 
agitation. 

Adrienne thought, “ Since they come in to- 
gether, Zoe must have said, ‘ Yes.’ ” 

Then, as Jules flung the door wide open, 
Zoe appeared, flushed and trembling, leaning 
on his arm. They came on together till they 
reached the grandfather’s easy-chair. Zoe 
lowered her eyes, frightened by the cere- 
mony ; but when from beneath their lids 
she caught sight of Adrienne in the back 
of the room, she brusquely left Jules, and 
ran to throw her arms about her friend's 
neck. 

“ But, Zoe,” murmured Jules, who quickly 
joined her, “ this is not proper, not at all 
proper. We should first present our re.spects 
to your grandfather.” 

“ You go and do it, — you go,” she said, 
hiding her shy little head under Adrienne's 


156 , A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

chin. “What’s the need of so much cere- 
mony, and Flora standing there like a po- 
liceman ! ” 

However, Jules succeeded in getting hold 
other hand, and led her blushing before Mr. 
Romanel. 

“ My dear girl, my dear children ! ” said the 
old man, pressing their hands. 

He could say no more ; as in the morning, 
his emotion choked his voice and filled his 
eyes with tears. Then Miss Celanie hid her 
face in her handkerchief, and Flora gave a 
great sob. Zoe, alarmed, did not know to 
whom to turn; she kissed her grandfather, 
her aunt, and Flora, when fortunately some 
one remembered that the young lover had 
not had his supper. His plate had been laid 
in the next room, where he was soon sent to 
recruit his strength ; but the door was left 
open, and every few moments Mr. Romanel 
said to Zoe, “ Go, see what he wants. The 
fricassee must be cold ; ask him if he would 
like an omelette.” 

Zoe, still blushing, stretched out her head 
towards the door, and said, “ Jules, would 
you like an omelette ? ” 

“ Go to him,” cried her grandfather. “ Is 
that your way of doing the honors?” 

But Zoe would not move; she was nestled 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. I 57 

close to her kind old cousin, and half con- 
fused, half laughing, was answering his ques- 
tions. Mr. Clovis too had been much over- 
come at the sight of this young happiness, 
still so frail that it could not be touched 
rudely. 

“ Poor children, poor children ! ” he kept 
repeating, much moved. “ May their lives 
be without storms ! Ah ! certainly, whatever 
I can do to launch their little bark I will do 
most heartily. Are you happy, Zoe? ” he 
asked her, smoothing her tiny hand as he 
held it between his. 

“ Very happy, now that the first disagree- 
able moment is over,” she said, with her wise 
little air, like a child who has just had a tooth 
pulled. 

“ There was then a disagreeable moment,” 
said her cousin, with anxiety. 

“ Ah ! you may well say so, — such a 
surprise ! I was undecided for all of ten 
minutes.” 

“ But you said, ‘ Yes,’ something must have 
decided you,” said Mr. Clovis, who immedi- 
ately reproached himself with having been 
abominably indelicate, but he would have 
given much to sound the heart of this newly 
betrothed child. “You knew you were free, 
— perfectly free? ” 


158 


A QUESTION OF LOFE. 


“Jules talked to me very well; he ex- 
plained his own character, and he said he 
would make me perfectly happy. It is true 
that he is very amiable, — we get along ad- 
mirably, we never have quarrelled — only the 
once,” she corrected herself. 

“Ah! you have quarrelled?” 

“ Yes, just now,” she went on, lowering her 
eyes, while a crimson flame shot across her 
cheeks. 

“ They have their little secrets already, 
that’s a good sign,” thought Mr. Clovis. 

“ I don’t think there are any cherries on 
the table; poor Jules, I am sure, never had so 
poor a supper in his life. Bestir yourself, 
Zoe,” said Mr. Romanel. 

“ I ’ll go,” said Flora, leaving the knitting 
she had taken up as usual. “ They ’ll make 
her black his boots next,” she muttered, as 
she went to the room where Jules was has- 
tily finishing his supper. “ Did ever any one 
see such a commotion ? But nothing can 
convince me that it ’s not all got up between 
them.” 

“ Cherries, sir,” she said, so suddenly hand- 
ing him a plate that Jules started. “ See 
that, — you might think he had a bad con- 
science,” thought the old servant, knitting 
her brows. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


159 


And later, when they were separating, she 
found a chance amidst the confusion of the 
good nights, to get Zoe into a corner and 
ask, “Are you happy? Come, be frank,” 
raising the delicate chin with her old finger, 
rough as a nutmeg-grater. 

“ Happy? Certainly I am,” answered Zoe, 
in astonishment. “ How strange you are. 
Flora ! Why do you look at me so? ” 

“ Because I don’t believe a word of it, 
there ; and you would be wiser to tell me 
the truth.” 

Zoe knit the delicate black eyebrows, which 
were the only strongly marked feature of her 
face, and whose line could become astonish- 
ingly severe. She was going to answer with 
some warmth, when she saw Adrienne leaving 
the room ; then, escaping by a rapid move- 
ment from the hands of the old servant, she 
ran after her cousin, and joined her half-way 
up the stairs. 

“ Good night, Jules,” she called, as she 
darted by him like an arrow. She only 
thought of overtaking Adrienne, whose waist 
she encircled with her arm, then slightly lean- 
ing towards each other the two girls went 
slowly up, with a little pause on each step, 
holding their candlesticks atilt, as girls will 
when deep in intimate talk. Not once did 


l6o A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

she turn to look at Jules, who naturally felt 
displeased with this. 

“ Can I go in with you? ” said Zoe, on the 
first landing. “ It is too soon to sleep, and 
I am too excited.” 

“ No one would think it,” said Adrienne. 

“ Well, I am, nevertheless. So much has 
been said this evening.” 

She put her candlestick on the mantel, and 
then sat down on the side of the bed, absently 
playing with the corner of the gay crimson 
cover. Adrienne sat down by her, put her 
arms around her neck, and kissed her on the 
forehead, — a long, tender kiss, almost like a 
mother’s. 

“ Well, darling, are you happy? ” she asked, 
after a long pause. 

“You too?” cried Zoe, turning quickly. 
“ That ’s the third time I Ve been asked that. 
What sort of a countenance must I put on 
that every one may know I am pleased? 
Yes, I am pleased, — very pleased, - — pro- 
digiously pleased. Now, let some one pro- 
claim it from the roof-top.” Here she threw 
herself into Adrienne’s arms, and burst into 
tears. 

“You are all unnerved, dear,” said Adri- 
enne gravely. 

“ No, but I feel that I shall never know how 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. l6l 

to do or to say anything right. I am not like 
other people, — lam odd, — I have lived too 
much with old people.” 

“You are the dearest little thing in the 
world,” cried Adrienne, as she kissed her. 

“ Oh, you are so good ! ” cried Zoe, press- 
ing her passionately in her arms. “ You and 
Cousin Clovis, — I love you better than all 
the world.” 

“ And Jules?” asked Adrienne laughing. 

“Jules? Oh! he’s different.” 

“ I should hope so,” his sister answered 
somewhat dryly. 

“ If you were in my place,” Zoe went on, 
“you would know exactly what to do, and 
what to say. Adrienne, teach me, 1 beg I ” 

“ Oh, I ! ” said Adrienne, thrusting her el- 
bow into the great embroidered pillow ; “ if 
the young and handsome Unknown, which 
Fate has been kind enough to reserve for me, 
had appeared this evening — ” 

“ But, Adrienne, he is n’t a young and hand- 
some Unknown,” Zoe protested. 

“ — and had incontinently asked for my 
hand, bringing proofs that he possessed the 
means of existence, which is all my prosaic 
family would require of him, — I don’t know 
where I was in my speech, but let us sup- 
pose that a free consent had been given, no 


62 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


one would need to ask me if I was happy, — 
that would show itself, I promise you. To 
begin with, I should smother you with kisses, 
that would relieve me a little. I should utter 
a thousand foolish things with a secret desire 
to cry for joy and astonishment. No one 
ever more than half believes in a thing 
which has been so longed for, and which 
comes at last. That you should be made one 
for the other, and never know it for years, 
and then suddenly good fortune takes you 
by the hand, and everything is arranged ! 
That from among all the young men and 
young girls of which the world is full, you 
should walk straight towards each other ! It 
all seems incredible. In the morning when 
I woke, I should be obliged to drink a great 
glass of water before believing it.” 

Adrienne’s joking tone had gradually 
changed to a low rapid one, strangely re- 
pressed. She was no longer speaking to 
Zoe, but to herself, and any one would have 
said that she was intoxicated by her own 
words. Zoe listened, opening wide her eyes, 
and straining every faculty to .seize each 
word. 

“ Weep for joy ! that I never could,” she 
said, with a sorrowful feeling of being unequal 
to the situation. “ Give me some other ad- 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 1 63 

vice. Ought I to devote myself to him en- 
tirely, as grandpapa wishes? ” 

“That’s your first duty,” said Adrienne, 
turning with an effort from the vision she 
was seeing, and falling back into her usual 
tone of mocking vivacity. “ In your place I 
should become sentimental; I should have 
an album where I could put my pressed 
flowers, with the dates and all sorts of sou- 
venirs.” 

“ Listen,’* said Zoe, interrupting her ; “ if, as 
you walked together some evening, he wished 
to kiss you, — don’t look at me, I know I am 
blushing, — if he did that, you would be an- 
gry, wouldn’t you?” 

“ Certainly,” said Adrienne, gravely. 

“ And if you forgave him, it would be 
on the sole condition that he never did it 
again ? ” 

“ On that sole condition.” 

“ And he dared to say that his conduct 
was proper,” said Zoe, with a flush of indig- 
nation. “ I am glad you share my feelings 
about it. Good night, darling.” 

The next morning Zoe had no need to 
drink a glass of water in order to believe in 
the reality of the events of the night before. 
She was haunted by them all night, and woke 
with the feeling that her life was so changed 


1 64 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

that nothing could ever be the same. ‘How- 
ever, she resolved to do her duty. She 
dressed quickly, and went down to bid Jules 
good morning before his early start. She 
set the table for his breakfast, chose the 
rosiest and freshest of radishes, which she 
arranged in a crystal shell, and put on his 
napkin a band of bright ribbon, instead of 
the old wooden ring. 

Slender and dainty in her dress of blue 
linen, and very earnest and absorbed, she 
went to meet Jules, whom she heard on the 
stairway; she wanted to fail in nothing he 
might expect of her. He seemed surprised 
and delighted to see her. Her airs as busy 
mistress of the house enchanted him ; he 
praised the coffee and the radishes, became 
poetic over the ribbon, and declared that 
he would keep it all his life as a precious 
souvenir. 

“Ah! that reminds me of something. 
Will you kindly bring me from the city a 
little album? Adrienne says I shall need one 
for my dried flowers and other souvenirs.” 

“ I shall be too happy to do your errands,” 
he answered, opening his note-book and draw- 
ing out his pencil. “ What color? ” 

“ Oh, no matter ! gray if you like.” 

“ Do you like gray? it is a very lady-like 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


65 


color,” he said, in a tone of approbation. He 
was perfectly satisfied, he liked rosy little 
radishes, fresh butter, quiet conversation, and 
the pretty blue dress under whose soft con- 
tours the young girl’s heart was beating in 
regular pulses. 

“ Will you go with me into the court,” he 
said, rising. “ I must tell them to saddle my 
horse.” 

She followed him, happy in the fresh air. 
At the end of the hall on the sill of the door 
he offered her his arm, which she dared not 
refuse, and they crossed the court together 
thus. 

Samuel from the depths of the barn where 
he was unloading a hay-cart saw them pass. 
He paled slightly, stopped a minute, and 
then said quietly to George, who was on top 
of the heap, “ Get down quickly, Mr. Morier 
wants his horse.” 

“ Oh ! ” said George, who without know- 
ing why — perhaps through some dim in- 
stinct of his brotherly love — felt a curious 
antipathy to Jules Morier. “ He can wait, — 
what you can’t do for yourself, you must not 
hurry others to do for you.” 

And the two brothers went on with their 
work, George in the hayloft seizing great 
armfuls of short, sweet-scented hay, — the 


1 66 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

delicate growth of the mountain fields, — 
which Samuel threw up to him off the end 
of his fork, and whose light stalks floated 
through the air, perfuming it with an exqui- 
site odor, like that of rare fine tea. 

The regular movements of the hardy work- 
ers alternated in a kind of rhythm ; for while 
George was spreading out his armful of hay 
so that it should be smooth and even, Sam- 
uel would plunge his fork into the billowy 
mass, and, as George leaned over the edge, 
again would straighten his supple young back 
like a bow unstrung, and throw with one effort 
the heavy load to his brother. The loose 
straws fell back on his upturned face, but 
he wiped them away with his sleeve, while 
George, if he stung his hand on a thistle, only 
stopped to rub it impatiently on his panta- 
loons of coarse brown homespun. 

All at once the rhythm ceased. George 
failed to find the hay flung up at the second 
that he expected it. Astonished and alarmed 
he looked down. Samuel stood motionless, his 
head lowered till his forehead rested on the 
handle of the pitchfork, and he did not an- 
swer when his brother spoke. 

With one bound George was beside him. 
“What’s the matter?” he cried, stooping to 
see his face. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


167 


Samuel raised his head. He was pale as 
death even under his sun-burn. When he 
tried to speak, his lips trembled, his throat 
contracted, and only a harsh strange sound 
came forth. Then, ashamed and angry at 
his want of self-control, he struck his fist vio- 
lently against the rack of the cart and turned 
to George, showing plainly his convulsed face. 
Once more he tried to speak, to explain, but 
a dry sob cut short the words that rose to his 
lips. In consternation George looked away; 
it seemed like treachery to let his eyes rest 
on his brother’s agony. The silence lasted 
for some moments. Samuel went to the win- 
dow and stood there with compressed lips, 
struggling desperately against this physical 
tumult of his whole being; with his wrists 
grasped tightly in his hands, he hurt himself in 
the effort to master the pulsing of his young 
blood, which was risen in revolt; and he 
longed to grasp his heart with the same cruel 
pressure. Silently, by an effort of will, he 
controlled himsislf. He felt that his dignity 
and courage could conquer at least the out- 
ward signs of suffering; What George had 
already^'seen was more than 'enough. ■ 

The farmer himself, happening to be at 
the door of the stable, had saddled the horse 
for Jules. As the young man was about 


1 68 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

to put his foot into the stirrup, Mrs. Voumard 
crossed the yard. 

“ Since they are both here,” whispered Zoe 
to her cousin, “ let us tell the news, then it 
will be over.” 

Jules immediately, and with polite haste, 
put down the foot already raised, and, draw- 
ing Zoe’s hand under his arm, went towards 
Mrs. Voumard, to whom he made a low bow. 

“ We are engaged,” said Zoe blushing, — 
for it seemed to her that the eyes of the little 
woman fixed themselves upon her with pene- 
trative sharpness. “ It happened yesterday, 
and — and we did not wish to be late in tell- 
ing you.” 

“ I thank you, and wish you much happi- 
ness,” said the woman with some dryness, 
straightening her flat waist, and gathering 
into one hand her apronful of grain that she 
might offer the other to Zoe and Jules. 

But she only gave them four stiff fingers to 
shake, and withdrew them without having 
bent them, so that Zoe felt that she had 
shaken hands with a board. 

The farmer was more cordial. This is 
an event ! ” he cried, with an expansive smile. 
“It’s a long time since anything of the kind 
happened in this house. Mr. Romanel will 
grow young again.” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 169 

Zoe turned once more to Mrs. Voumard, 
to make a timid effort at conciliation. She 
could not bear to feel that any one was dis- 
pleased with her, as Mrs. Voumard too evi- 
dently was. It was written all over her, from 
the sole of her foot, so solidly planted on the 
flags, to the severe frown on her forehead, — 
not forgetting the acute angle of her elbows, 
which she held against her hips as she stood 
close by her husband, as if to say, “ When 
you have had enough of this, I shall be 
glad to go back to my work.” 

“ We don’t know when we shall be mar- 
ried,” said Zoe, blushing still more; “ but we 
hope you will come to the wedding, and 
Samuel too.” 

Mrs. Voumard suddenly thrust out her 
chin, which caused the tendons of her neck 
to stand out, and made this good little gray 
chicken look like an angry brooding hen, on 
the point of striking with its beak. “Thank 
you, but you overwhelm me, miss. ^ Too 
much honor is none,’ says the proverb.” 

Disconcerted, Zoe looked first at the farmer 
and then at Jules; but seeing that, after the 
manner of their sex in such matters, they 
kept a prudent silence, she suddenly dropped 
Jules’s arm, trusting to the young man to 
end the interview, and went into the house. 


IJO A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

She was, however, at her window when a cer- 
tain rider passed over the road at the foot of 
the garden, and she waved him a friendly 
greeting. 

“ What ails you ? ” said the farmer to his 
wife, who with quick gestures and almost 
tragic face threw the grain to left and right 
for the chickens. “ I have never seen you 
look so.” 

She answered nothing, which spoke well 
for her principles. She emptied her apron, 
and shook it until the last particle of grain 
was gone ; she lingered, as if she had some- 
thing to say, and she then said it. “ A 
fine marriage that ! with a shrug of her 
shoulders. 

“Very good; what fault do you find with 
it?” said her astonished husband. 

“ Oh ! it ’s no concern of mine. But if I 
were told that it ’s a plan of Miss Adrienne’s, 
I would not be surprised. She does what 
she likes with Zoe. She could make her 
swallow her brother with a spoon.” 

“ Mr. Jules is a very worthy young man, 
he has a good profession,” said the farmer, in 
a tone of calm justice. 

“ He says it of himself, and who can con- 
tradict him here? And with it all, do you 
think Miss Zoe looked particularly delighted ? ” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. i/i 

“ No, I can’t say she did ; but she is timid, 
and would hide it.” 

“ She has n’t much trouble to hide it, I 
assure you. Go to their wedding ! If it 
comes off — that wedding — there will be 
more weeping than laughing.” 

“ Do hush,” cried her husband ; “ you will 
bring evil on them.” 

The morning begun in this disagreeable 
fashion went on sad and monotonous, and 
Miss Celanie was not the only one who sighed 
under the roof of Gray Manse. It happened 
that Adrienne Morier had a sick headache, 
caused perhaps by the excitement of the 
evening before. When Zoe after seeing Jules 
off went into her friend’s room, she found her 
behind the bed curtains, looking very ill, her 
blonde hair moistened and glued to her tem- 
ples by the cold water applications she had 
used. She begged with impatience to be let 
alone, refusing salts or aromatic vinegars, 
declaring that she had faith in nothing but 
some caffeine pills which she had just taken. 
Zoe left her with a heavy heart when she saw 
that her presence, so far from being good 
for Adrienne, really seemed to irritate her. 

“ But at least promise me to ring if you 
need anything.” 

“Yes, yes, anything you like. Go away. 


172 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


Zoe. If you knew what this headache was,” 
groaned Adrienne, “ you would know what it 
is to detest the sight of all your kind.” 

Zoe left her then, and all the morning wan- 
dered lonely in the corridors and in the gar- 
den, not knowing what to do with herself. 
She took up her needle, but without Adri- 
enne’s gay chatter her embroidery seemed 
uninteresting. Twenty times she went up 
the stairs, to listen at the closed door, and to 
murmur, “ How are you, my poor Adrienne? ” 
The only answer came from the swallows, 
who under the eaves, where hung a curtain 
of green vine, were chattering and busy over 
their housekeeping, darting to and fro like 
flashes before the rounded opening of the win- 
dow which lit the landing. In the kitchen, 
currant jelly was being made. Zoe neglected 
all her duties in not helping in this work, 
but she pleaded that she ought to stay near 
Adrienne, and Miss Celanie indulgently did 
not insist. 

“ Don’t let us spoil the first golden days of 
courtship,” she said to Flora. “ Leave her 
to her dreams.” 

“ And of whom do you think she is dream- 
ing?” said Flora, brusquely. 

“Why of whom? Flora, you shock me. 
Take care ! you ’ll spill the juice.” 


A QUESTION OF LOFE. 1 73 

The old servant had lifted the kettle full of 
ruby-colored juice with a quick movement, 
which had almost sent a cascade over Miss 
Celanie. 

“ All this business is like a top, that spins 
and spins, and no one knows on what side it 
will fall,” said this modern Sibyl, shaking her 
head. When she had put the kettle back 
on its tripod, neither the questions nor the 
indignant looks of her mistress could draw 
another word from her. 

Tired of wandering, Zoe at length sat down 
on the deep window-sill of the landing, swing- 
ing her slipper from the tip of her tiny foot, 
which hung without support, and playing 
absently with a volume of her dear Mous- 
quetaires.” She could not read, and, open- 
ing the book into the shape of a sloping 
roof, she set it up on the edge of the stone, 
and drew around it some of the supple 
branches of the vine which were straying 
across the opening. That was to represent 
a tent, a pavilion, an encampment, in some 
undiscovered country, and Zoe went on im- 
agining that under this frail shelter, in the 
solitude of some enchanted forest, was a 
mysterious life, — only for two beings, how- 
ever. Her idea was doubtless born of some 
recollection of “ Atala,” which her aunt had 


174 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


made her read, though it was sealed with 
many red wafers. 

With eyes full of the fair light of July, 
leaning back a little to watch the vibrations 
of the heated air, she gazed at the blue 
shadows beneath the eaves, the rich mass 
of foliage, and the tender tendrils of gilded 
green, as they swayed to and fro. A swal- 
low in its rapid flight almost brushed her 
with its wing, and made her eyelids tremble ; 
but she never lifted a finger, and gave herself 
up to a delicious languor, in which came 
vague visions of marvellous flowers. To live 
in a country where it was always summer, 
under this tent of lovely rose-gray — with — 
with Jules? “O, no, not with Jules!*’ Zoe 
laughed softly, so funny did Jules seem in her 
land of fancy. His cravats were so fine, and 
his gray felt hats with narrow brims, and he 
wore flannels ! 

At that instant she heard a step on the 
stairs, and turned her head lazily. Her daz- 
zled eyes could see nothing at first in the 
shadow of the long hall, then they distin- 
guished a silhouette. 

“ Is that you? How do you do, Samuel? 
Don’t make any noisfe; my cousin has a sick 
headache,”' said she, laying a finger on her 
lips. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


175 


She was somewhat astonished to see him 
in the house, for he rarely came in. Thrust- 
ing on her slipper quickly, and assuring her- 
self with a glance that her dress was properly 
in place, she took her most proper attitude, 
while Samuel, with a preoccupied air, seemed 
about to pass without adding anything to his 
“ Good morning.” 

“ Where are you going so fast? ” she asked 
softly. 

“ Up to the garret. Our servant is going 
this evening, and I must get down his trunk. 
He walks so heavily that I came myself, so 
as not to disturb Mr. Romanel.” Samuel 
spoke in rather an uncertain way, his face 
turned away, and his eyes fixed on the gray 
wooden post, in which the baluster ended. 

Zoe, roused from her indolence, wanted 
to talk. “Your man is going! ” she said, in 
a sympathetic tone ; “ that must be incon- 
venient just in the midst of haying.” 

“ His father is sick,” answered Samuel, 
briefly, as he went up two or three steps. 

“Are you so hurried? ” said Zoe, almost 
plaintively. “ You can’t tell how weary I am 
of this day ! I have not seen Adrienne since 
this morning.” 

“ And yet you did without your cousin for 
some time.” 


176 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


‘‘ O, yes ! but then I did not know how 
dull I was. It was my normal condition. 
Now — how shall I say it? — I see now the 
difference.” 

‘‘A great gain you have made,” he mur- 
mured. 

Mercy, Samuel, are you in a bad humor, 
like — ” She was going to say, “like your 
mother,” but she stopped in time. 

Suddenly the book set up roof-wise on the 
window-sill almost slipped off into the gar- 
den. She caught it by a corner of the cover, 
shut it, smoothed it out, and said, “ I prom- 
ised you ‘Monte Cristo,’ did I not? I had 
forgotten it. Shall I get it for you now? ” 

“ Thank you, I should not have time to 
read it.” 

“That’s true. Now there’s the haying, 
and soon will come the harvest. I ’ll send it 
to you next winter — ” 

She interrupted herself with a start, almost 
frightened. Next winter ! Where would she 
be then? Miss Celanie had told her at break- 
fast that Mr. Romanel was in great haste to 
have the marriage over. He had been so 
nervous for several weeks that now he must not 
be crossed, — his impatience was hurting him. 

“O Samuel!” cried Zoe, “ I shall most 
likely not be at Gray Manse next winter.” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


177 


Her voice trembled, and with a childish ges- 
ture she passed the back of her hand over 
her eyes, suddenly full of tears. 

“You know the news, — you know it al- 
ready? Who told you, your mother?” 

She spoke fast, somewhat troubled by his 
silence. She could not distinguish his face 
very clearly in the shadow of the turn of the 
stairs, but she felt that his eyes were on her. 

“ Well,” she said, at the end of a moment, 
“ you don’t congratulate me? ” 

“ Why should I ? ” he answered slowly. 

She was taken aback ; why should he in- 
deed ! “ But I think it is usual,” she mur- 

mured, lowering her eyes. 

Before she raised them, Samuel was close 
before her in the window recess. “ You are 
quite happy, are you not?” he said, almost 
inaudibly. 

There was something so earnest and anx- 
ious in his look, that Zoe questioned herself 
before answering. “ Yes, I am perfectly hap- 
py,” she said, after a moment’s reflection. 
“ That is to say, I would be if Adrienne 
had n’t the headache.” 

“ Happier than before? ” 

“ Oh ! ” she said, with an embarrassed laugh, 
“ that ’s not easy to say. Such things are not 
weighed out like sugar.” 

12 


178 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

Samuel felt that for her, that for himself, 
he ought to go away, and that to any other 
than this inexperienced girl his persistence 
would have seemed strange; but he never 
could look at her without a tender sense of 
protection, because behind her, so dainty and 
delicate, he seemed to see — although he 
could not express it — that brutal thing which 
we call life, which buffets and abuses the 
weak and delicate. Zoe had chosen her pro- 
tector, the well conducted young man who 
never spoke too much nor too loud, and 
who knew so well how to take off his hat 
elegantly. Samuel felt a savage desire to 
torture himself, for we always think that 
a moment may come when we shall have 
suffered enough, when the amputation is 
over, and that when it is finished we shall 
feel nothing more. 

“ It is he who must be congratulated,” said 
he calmly, for at this moment he had not that 
great flow of bitterness, — only the dull im- 
pression of a sorrow which hung over him 
like a fog. 

“ He? my cousin? You are not kind to 
Jules to say that. And yet,” she said, with 
a thoughtful look, “ it is true, it is true. I 
have thought much of it all, as you may be- 
lieve, since yesterday, when it all happened 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. ‘ ijg 

Alone, here in the corridor, I have studied and 
studied it, and it seems to me that marriage 
is a queer thing. Equitable? O, no! not 
at all. What, for instance, do I gain? I shall 
leave Gray Manse, my grandpapa, and my 
dear cousin Clovis, to go out into the world 
with some one who is really nothing to me.” 

“But why do you do it?” exclaimed 
Samuel. 

“Ah why? I ask you,” said Zoe, hanging 
her head. “ Because it is the custom, I sup- 
pose ; because the gentlemen always arrange 
things.” 

She always said “ gentlemen,” her aunt 
having taught her that it would be highly 
improper to say “ men,” except in the cate- 
chism. 

“ Listen,” said Samuel ; after the word, he 
stopped to take breath. “ I am going to tell 
you why people leave father, mother, and 
home, to go out with one another, husband 
and wife, to the end of the world, and why 
they are more happy alone together than in 
the best company.” 

Zoe thought of the rose-colored tent in the 
enchanted forest; her eyes smiled. “Yes, I 
know,” she murmured softly. 

“ It is because they love one another, and 
they would not live apart for anything, — 


l80 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

no,” he went on earnestly, “ not for anything 
that is on the face of the earth.” 

He looked at her with eyes she did not 
recognize, so sad and ardent, and where his 
secret was plainly written, but Zoe did not 
know how to read it. She gave a great 
sigh, and looked out into the garden, full of 
sunlight now, thinking vaguely of the time 
when, a tiny child, she used to sit under the 
rose trees, singing, 

“ I have gathered the red, red rose. 

That hung from the white rose tree ; 

I have plucked it leaf from leaf, 

To hide in my apron, — see ! '' 

And w'hile her head was turned, Samuel 
disappeared. Thoughtful ! there was reason 
to be. A new vision of life stood revealed. 
Behind the fleeing white fog, limitless fields 
were spread to the mysterious light. Zoe’s 
heart was moved within her ; she reached out 
her hands to the undiscovered country, the 
land of promise, and longed to enter in. 


CHAPTER XL 


J ULES MORIER, in spite of his humility, 
could easily have grown accustomed to 
being adored, but he was obliged to acknowl- 
edge that, for the time being, at least, he was 
not adored This fact certainly helped to 
increase his ardor, and gave it at times, when 
the wind was fanning it, the proportions of 
a small conflagration. The more difficult Zoe 
was to please, the more the engineer tried 
himself, studying the ground, and his own 
strong or weak points. Adrienne helped 
him with much tact. She entered delicately 
into Zoe’s caprices, forcing herself to under- 
stand them, that she might explain them to 
her brother. And, thanks to her, the daily 
bouquet was of the favorite flowers, conver- 
sation flowed without too much effort, and a 
door of salvation was open to Jules in all his 
difficulties. She even prompted his wit and 
intelligence. He always thanked her with a 
look, or with some affectionate attention, 
and above everything else this fraternal love 


i 82 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


touched Zoe most deeply. She loved to 
hear Jules talk of his family, who were, ac- 
cording to Adrienne, a mutual admiration 
society. 

“So much the better,” said, Zoe; “I will 
profit by it.” 

She had put away in her treasure-box the 
telegrams and letters that she had received 
from the family ; — from Madam Morier, who 
wrote in an elevated .style, with large, elegant 
penmanship, regretting that her husband’s ill- 
ness prevented her from joining them ; from 
the Professor, whose cordial lines, already fa- 
therly, made Zoe burst into tears ; from each 
of the children, down to little Maurice, for 
whom it was the first effort at a letter, and 
kisses, sweet messages, caressing words, were 
sent to the new sister, whom Adrienne told 
them was so lovely. They sent her a collec- 
tion of photographs, — portraits of Jules in his 
babyhood, in skirts, as a little sailor, as officer 
of his school brigade, as a model collegian, 
leaning his elbow on a pile of books and 
crowned with a victor’s wreath. Zoe laughed 
heartily at this portrait gallery, and found 
much material for teasing Jules. Adrienne 
wrote to her mother that this step had been a 
mistake; that they must all understand that 
Zoe was not in the least sentimental, — Jules 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


183 

in a long dress only seemed ridiculous to her. 
“ And he has no need of any help in that 
direction,” she added. 

This sentence made the careful mother so 
anxious, that she immediately indicted six 
great sheets of advice to her son, imploring 
him not to make himself ridiculous, and to 
use great tact. 

“ It is exactly as if Mamma had said, ‘ Jules, 
be a millionaire,’” said Adrienne, laughing, 
as she folded up this excellent little treatise. 

** I shall be that, perhaps,” retorted Jules, 
vexed, “ before a certain young man has 
made enough to get back from America.” 

“ That ’s right, strike back,” said Adrienne, 
bursting into tears. 

Zoe was much more interested in the por- 
traits of the rest of the family. Jeanne the 
musician, with her oval face and tragic eyes, 
Marie, with floating hair and an artistic Bo- 
hemian make-up, and Alfred, seated on a 
rock because of his love for geology. She 
felt a timid joy at the thought of entering so 
remarkable a family. She doted already on 
little Maurice, and knew by heart all his wise 
sayings and doings. And Jules was so kind ! 
Not one of her fancies did he fail to register 
in his note-book, with every particular as to 
size and color, and he spared no pains to 


1 84 ^ QUESTION OF LOVE, 

gratify and please her. He was full of atten- 
tion and care for her, and was never vexed 
when she teased him ; he even tried to give 
her thoughts a serious turn, and talked to her 
of the theory of motion. Once, when he had 
been demonstrating the axiom that no force 
is ever lost, she interrupted him to say, 
somewhat touched, and laying her hand 
affectionately on his arm, “No, nothing is 
lost, not even your indulgence for me, Jules, 
nor your patience.” 

He looked at her so gratefully that she was 
moved, and when he leaned and kissed the 
little hand whose three slender fingers lay on 
his sleeve, she did not snatch it away. She 
shrugged her shoulders slightly, but did not 
get angry; and this was great progress, he 
felt. 

One day, near the end of the haymaking, 
Jules having obtained a holiday, it was de- 
cided it would be charming to go on an ex- 
cursion somewhere. The prettiest view in all 
the neighborhood was at a place called the 
“ Seven Ladders,” but to go there without 
a guide would be imprudent, because of the 
cliffs. 

“ Samuel won’t refuse to go this time to 
guide us, for the haying is nearly done. I 
shall go to speak to him,” said Zoe. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


185 ' 

She came back triumphant. Samuel had 
said yes at once, and Flora had declared that 
she would make one of the party to keep the 
young ones in order. Flora had much pride 
in accentuating the difference in age which 
separated her from the veritable old people 
of the house ; and it is true that, when we 
serve a master who is nearly a hundred, we 
feel young at sixty. She was an excellent 
walker, provided that she was allowed to 
stop and breathe in going up hill, and gay 
as a sparrow as soon as she had swallowed 
great mouthfuls of the fresh air. 

At eight o’ clock the next morning the 
whole procession was seated on the garden 
wall, waiting for Adrienne, who was late. Zoe, 
in a dress of pale pink percale, her little feet 
swinging against the gray wall, was tracing with 
the point of her parasol the brown and white 
designs which the dew in drying had left on 
the flags of the terrace, and Samuel, leaning 
on his elbow by her, was absorbed in watching 
her, as if the slender point of cane were tracing 
cabalistic characters. 

He had said to himself the evening before, 

“ To-morrow I am going to he happy. I shall 
have at least this one day.” He had prom- 
ised himself to rejoice in this poor comfort 
without letting fall one crumb of it, or without 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


1 86 

spoiling it by any desire beyond the present 
moment. And it was easy to do, for Zoe’s 
mere presence penetrated him with joy. To 
look at her, to see her, satisfied his soul. He 
did not say much ; when Zoe spoke, he an- 
swered with almost an absent air, and yet 
each word she said went to lie behind the 
ivory gates of the sanctuary where Memory 
guards her treasures. 

On the other side of Zoe was Jules, in full 
tourist's costume, — the tight gray gaiters on 
account of the dew, the green box swung 
from the shoulder strap, — and he was very 
animated and talkative. Flora, a little to one 
side, was shortening her brown and yellow 
striped skirt with pins. It was her Sunday 
skirt, and it was said, though this was an 
ancient joke, that no one had ever seen the 
right side of it, as Flora always wore it turned 
up about her waist. The closed wicker bas- 
ket holding their provisions was standing on 
the wall against the trunk of a buttonwood, 
whose flickering shade showered the group 
with blue stains of shadow. 

At his window in the second story Mr. 
Romanel appeared from time to time, lean- 
ing out and asking, as he could not see well, 
“Isn’t Miss Adrienne ready yet?” 

They guessed what he said, rather than 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 187 

heard, for his voice was singularly weak this 
morning. 

“ She is coming Grandpapa,” Zoe replied, 
“ but we are very comfortable here.” 

He would make an impatient gesture with 
one hand only, for the other leaned on the 
window sill, and would turn back to his arm- 
chair. Mr. Clovis also appeared, framed in 
by his green shutters, and made them a 
friendly sign. Miss Celanie was coming and 
going nervously from the dining-room to the 
terrace, each time thrusting into Flora’s bas- 
ket some bottle of mint, or a wash for bruises, 
or ammonia for stings of the black fly. Poor 
Miss Celanie seemed convinced that the party 
was going to meet the ten plagues of Egypt. 
Finally, Adrienne appeared, veiled in blue 
gauze, and gloved up to her elbows. Arm in 
arm the two young girls started off gayly. 
Not a foot of dusty road in their way, nothing 
but paths across sweet-smelling sun-burnt 
fields, or green roads under the flickering 
shade of the beeches, whose branches inter- 
laced in long avenues at the end of which a 
stretch of blue sky was shining. Then came 
paths again, dimly traced in the fine grass of 
the pastures, and which lost and found them- 
selves again as they led to some breach in a 
crumbling wall, or perhaps, broadened by the 


1 88 A QUESTION OF LOVE 

passing of cattle, stopped at a pool of steely 
blue, which reflected a strip of the heavens, the 
shadowy forms of dragon flies, and the bushy 
branches and large leaves of the colt’s-foot. 
It seemed to Adrienne that they were climb- 
ing any number of walls; but she did not 
venture to say anything, until Flora herself, 
who with her shortened skirts might have 
been supposed to be ready for any feat, 
stopped with her hands on her^iips, and called 
Samuel to account. 

This is very well,” she said, but do you 
think I am going to straddle all the walls in 
the country? This is the seventh you have 
made us jump.” 

‘‘Allow me to help you. Miss Flora,” he 
answered, offering his hand. 

“ Thank you, thank you, I can help my- 
self,” said Flora, planting her broad sole on a 
projecting rock; then, sitting on the top of 
the wall, and describing a semicircle with her 
feet, she brought them to the other side and 
came solidly down upon them. It was her 
own method, and more sure than elegant. 
“ Ah ! ” she murmured, changing her bas- 
ket to the other arm. “ I would be willing 
to bet that he has done it on purpose, the 
bad fellow.” 

“ It ’s quite true,” said Adrienne, embold- 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 189 

ened ; “ we are climbing a great many walls. 
Can’t we avoid some, Mr. Samuel?” 

“ I wanted to show you the prettiest places, 
as we had the day before us,” he said, 
reddening under the shade of his straw hat. 
“ But stop, at the end of this pasture we shall 
find a clear space perfectly red with straw- 
berries. Take care, Zoe, not on that stone, 
it shakes, — here rather, — that ’s right, — now 
jump.” She put her two hands in his, leaned 
forward, looking into his eyes for the signal, 
and when he said, “Jump,” she sprang lightly, 
hanging by her finger tips to the strong wrists 
which never allowed her to fall. Jules always 
came a moment late to offer his aid to Zoe. 
As he was not an expert in these gymnastics, 
he wasted time in looking for a good place, 
or in reassuring himself as to the safety of 
the wall; and it was Zoe who, having been 
safely landed for a minute or more, would 
hold out the point of her parasol to him with 
a mocking look. Then she would run back 
to Adrienne, whose skirts caught in every 
thorn ; with one hand she helped to hold up 
the folds, and to guard them from rough 
contact, with the other she guided the pretty 
awkward foot to a secure resting place. With 
his back against the wall, Samuel was ready 
with hand and shoulder, and Adrienne with 


190 'a question of love. 

many exclamations accomplished her descent. 
She was perfectly good-tempered about it; 
she was always pleased to be the object 
of attentions, and perhaps she exaggerated 
slightly her need of them. 

Zoe amused herself royally ; intoxicated by 
the fresh air and the forest odors, she talked, 
she laughed, her cheeks glowing, her wide- 
brimmed hat poised like an aureole around 
her curly brown head. She even forced Jules 
to run races. 

“ Let us wager that he cannot catch me,” 
she cried, when she saw him coming soberly 
down some grassy, slippery slope. 

With a bound she was off, and he after 
her, his green box beating against his back. 
It always ended in his catching her, and in 
her declaring that she had allowed him to. 
“ With those fine gaiters,” she would say, 
you ought to run better than that.” 

From field to field they went, and finally 
reached the summit, where they seated them- 
selves on the edge of a pine grove before a 
view in which mountains rose in the distance, 
one after the other, like waves. They were 
all a little tired, and for some minutes the 
conversation flagged. Oh the air came breaths 
of the vanilla odor of the dark purple orchis, 
which at this height covered the fields. Be- 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


I9I 

low them a group of young beeches dipped 
suddenly down, seeming to slip over the steep 
walls of some hidden valley, itself hung over 
deeper valleys, outlined by the soft-looking 
hollows of the mountains. Beyond that in 
the distance, which the clearness of the air 
brought close to them, the heights rose in 
story after story, strewed with clumps of 
woodland in the midst of green fields, and 
with rustic houses with shining windows. 
The white line of some road winding round 
a field was lost beneath the trees, and the 
threads of blue smoke rose straight in the 
air. 

“ Nothing pleases me so much as those 
lines of smoke,” said Zoe, dreamily, half-lying 
on the grass, her head under a tall bush on 
which she had hung her hat. “ It is impos- 
sible to think of being unhappy in the house 
from which they are so peacefully rising. 
Jules, look at that one, — the smallest there 
behind the pretty wood; you can’t see the 
house, you must imagine it It must be a 
gay, happy little one, with light brown shut- 
ters, and flowering geraniums at all the 
windows. A nice little woman lives there, 
with nothing to do all day but to care for 
her geraniums; and then she goes to look 
down the road, — that pretty little road which 


192 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


seems as if it were sleeping in the sunshine. 
She looks down the road to see if any one is 
coming.” 

“ Is she tired of being alone?” said Adri- 
enne. 

“ Yes, and she is waiting; she has put two 
plates on the white cloth, two forks and 
spoons, and a bunch of daisies ; all the china 
is blue in that little house. Ah ! how much 
I wish I could live there ! ” 

“ All alone?” asked Jules in an undertone. 
He was sitting near her; she turned her face 
to him, and their conversation went on in so 
low a voice that the rustling of the branches 
back of them shielded them entirely. 

Adrienne fanned herself with a fan of 
gentian leaves, and smiled, delighted. She 
knew her brother well; she saw him more 
deeply in love than she had ever dared to 
hope; she saw that his every thought was 
for Zoe, and in all his attitudes she found a 
sort of humility which touched her. If Zoe 
opened or shut her parasol, parted the 
branches, moved a finger, Jules seemed 
ashamed that he had not done it for her. 

“ Allow me, Zoe, allow me,” was his cry, 
always a little too late. He was really bear- 
ing the yoke of this delicate little creature ; 
he read her wishes in her eyes, he dreaded 


A QUESTION OF LOVE- 


93 


to bore her, or to appear heavy, and he forced 
his mind, that quiet ambler, to gallop over 
vale and mountain after the wandering fancy 
of his little sweetheart. Even Zoe herself 
seemed at times to be touched. It is true 
that this did not last long; the strain of 
friendly teasing was soon revived. 

Samuel lying in the grass looked off in the 
other direction. He had sworn to himself 
that he would find his happiness in the 
present moment, and by force of will he did 
so. He knew how many times his hands 
had held Zoe’s as if they belonged to him, — 
no one could ever take that away from him. 
They had both vibrated from the shock 
when the slender arms of the young girl had 
clung to his for a second. That also was his 
forever, and the grand sweep of the horizon 
too, since he was looking at it with her, and 
those curls of blue smoke, which he should 
always think of tenderly because she loved 
them. 

How many things a summer day may 
hold when we know that we shall have but 
that day, that it is flying past us, and that 
we must seize each ray ! It is thus that we 
make for ourselves short hours of happiness. 
Each one was absorbed in his own thoughts, 
but Flora’s were vague and foggy, and little 


194 ^ QUESTION OF LOVE. 

by little took the gray colors of a light nap, 
and disappeared under long veils as she 
murmured softly, “ Zoe does not love him. 
It is all,” she tried to say, “ made up amongst 
them,” but the words were too long and 
heavy. 

“ Look at Flora,” whispered Zoe. “ She 
is asleep, she is sound asleep. Let us play 
her a trick. Let us hide.” 

She took her hat from the branches, seized 
Adrienne’s hand, and ran off on tiptoes with 
her cousin, making signs to the young men 
that they were to disappear as quickly as 
possible. 

When Flora opened her eyes, a full half- 
hour afterwards, and found herself alone on 
the edge of the w^ood, she had a moment of 
panic, but her faithful basket, which she 
struck with her elbow, was so familiar that 
she regained her wits at once. “ They have 
played me a trick,” she said, “ but since they 
left me the provisions, it is all right. Hunger 
will drive the wolves from the wood.” She 
drew out of the basket the meat-pie and the 
bottles, which last she wrapped in gentian 
leaves, and put in the cool shade of the 
bushes, and, spreading a napkin on the grass, 
got everything ready and waited. Finally, 
as the time began to seem long, she called 


A QUESTION OF LOVE, 1 95 

aloud, but her fugitives were beyond the 
reach of her voice. 

Zoe and Adrienne in their flight had only 
sought a safe shelter where they could hide, 
and sit in the shade to talk. They had wan- 
dered under the trees; but seeing that these 
were growing more scattered, and that the 
groves were degenerating into clumps of 
bushes, they said to each other that they 
must be getting near some point of view, and 
that it would be amusing to find it. Straw- 
berries were hiding everywhere under the 
tall weeds, and they went to the left and the 
right to gather them, hardly perceiving how 
far they were walking. This slope was ex- 
tremely monotonous and alike everywhere, 
covered with brier roses, viburnums, great 
yellow plants, and tufts of young beeches. 
The eye as it sought the horizon was arrested 
by a spur of wooded mountain, which stood 
out like a promontory, and hid the plain 
which one guessed was beyond. Instinct- 
ively the two girls inclined their steps to 
this, wandering, climbing, ascending, and 
often stopping to offer each other some 
specially sweet strawberry ripe with sunlight. 

“ Zoe I want to tell you something,” 
Adrienne suddenly said, laying her two 
hands on her little cousin’s shoulders. 


196 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

“What is it? Tell me quick,” cried Zoe, 
discerning from the light in Adrienne’s eyes 
that it was of importance. 

Each with an arm around the other’s waist, 
and following the shade of the beeches, they 
wandered at haphazard, one talking, the other 
listening, forgetting all else in the world. 

“ Do you know why I was so late in 
coming down this morning, when you were 
all waiting for me so impatiently in front of 
the house? I had received a letter.” 

“ You had even two letters. I saw them 
on your plate.” 

“ Yes, one from Mamma — a good one — 
that is to say — I think I had n’t time to read 
it ; but the other, the other was from my — 
Prince Charming,” cried Adrienne laughing, 
and hiding her radiant, happy face in her 
hands. 

“Who is he?” asked Zoe with a beating 
heart. 

“ Ah ! be sure I love you, darling, if I talk 
to you of him. For months I had put it all 
under lock and key, and never opened my 
mouth about it. I had suffered so much for 
it. All sensible people are against it, and in 
my family every one of them is sensible.” 

“ Except me,” said Zoe, nestling up to 
her friend. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


197 


So you are on my side without knowing 
anything about it? Thank you, darling; I 
shall write that to Edward. It is the old 
story; he had been put into a bank, and he 
detested business ; he was doing nothing of 
any account. His violin alone was what he 
loved ; my family think that is not a serious 
profession. Jeanne, it is true, is a pianist; 
but then she can give lessons, and have a 
concrete result, while Edward drew nothing 
from his violin but lovely tones. Ah ! poor 
Jeanne, it was she who brought us together. 
He came to the house to play duets with her, 
and I turned the pages. When Jeanne saw 
that I turned two pages at once, and that 
Edward did not notice it, she gave up the 
practisings, but the evil was done. Then 
there were terrible storms.” 

“ I,” said Zoe, — “I have had no storms,” 
and you might have thought there was a 
shade of regret in her voice. 

“ Perhaps you will have them yet, dearest,” 
said Adrienne consolingly. 

With the instinct of girlhood they under- 
stood each other so well, that it never oc- 
curred to them to find anything absurd in 
what they were saying. 

“ Listen,” Zoe went on in a moment, her 
voice trembling a little, — “ if it is a question 


198 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

of mon — Don’t be angry with what I am go- 
ing to say, Adrienne, you are my only friend, 
and I am your little sister. If it is a ques- 
tion of money,” she hastened to say quickly, 
“I have enough; I don’t know where it is; 
but I ’ll ask Cousin Clovis to give it to me 
for you, to set you up in housekeeping.” 
She felt herself suddenly seized and pressed 
in Adrienne’s arms, who for a moment could 
not speak. 

“ Don’t look at me,” she cried finally. “ I 
hate people to see me crying. But I shall 
never forget what you have said. But, thank 
God, our little boat is already afloat. A year 
ago Edward went to America. He went for 
my sake, for he might well have lingered on 
vegetating in his bank, and playing the violin 
with his friends in the evening. But he went, 
found a place as correspondent in a large 
shop for musical instruments. In his spare 
time he gives music lessons. He has had so 
many scholars in the last three months that 
he even thought of giving up the correspond- 
ence. He writes me regularly, and is saving, 
— in short, it is the story of the worthy little 
Swiss with his pet marmot,” she ended, with 
a happy laugh. 

“But will you go over there?” Zoe said, 
much moved. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 1 99 

“ Perhaps, I don’t know. Edward hopes to 
convince his chiefs of the need they have for 
a correspondent here in Europe, who will 
hunt up antique violins, and buy new ones 
with judgment” 

“ Because, if you go, I go,” declared Zoe, 
trembling with a passion which penetrated 
her whole being. “Jules can think of it 
what he pleases.” 

They had reached the wooded spur which 
so lately had cut off their view, and for sev- 
eral minutes had been walking on a sharp 
crest, each slope of which fell off into a preci- 
pice. It was a gentle precipice carpeted with 
the woolly verdure of young beeches crowded 
close one against the other, springing from 
every crevice and every ledge to which the 
rains had brought a little black earth. It 
seemed as if you might glide softly from 
top to bottom on this elastic tufted cushion. 
At the summit, the woodman’s hatchet had 
spared several tall trees, whose roots, bare 
and twisted, clasped the gray rock, and came 
creeping down like arms feeling for the preci- 
pice. 

“There,” cried Zoe, stopping suddenly; 
“ there they are, those famous ladders.” 

At the foot of an old pine, the advance 
sentinel at the end of the crest, and whose 


200 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


branches, bearded with gray moss, hung al- 
most to the ground, some steps deeply cut 
had dared the sharp descent. Leaning over 
these, some ladder rounds could be seen 
below, half hidden by tufts of hart’s-tongue, 
with their large shining leaves. 

“ A discovery ! ” said Zoe, gayly. “ Let 
us at least see where they go to, these lad- 
ders, and then we will start back. Listen, is 
some one calling us? ” 

For several minutes past the slopes they 
had travelled had been resounding with cries, 
calls, and laughter. Some children who were 
gathering strawberries there were seeking 
and answering each other, their calls, muf- 
fled by the distance, reverberating against the 
rocks. 

“ No, those are only children, who like to 
play and scream. But Flora must have fin- 
ished her nap. I am beginning to be hungry ; 
are you, Adrienne?” 

“You remind me of it, — the pit which 
yearns beneath our feet is as nothing to 
that which I feel within me. Would you 
believe,” she exclaimed, drawing out her 
watch, “we have been twenty-five minutes 
getting down here, and it will take us more 
to go up.” 

“ O, no ! we dawdled. Now we shall hurry. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


201 


Just five minutes more, Adrienne, — time to 
glance at the ladders ! ” 

Zoe slowly went down the steps, cut in the* 
rock, and her cousin followed her cautiously, 
leaning with both hands on the rock, her back 
turned to the precipice. On a little moss- 
grown landing, fringed with ferns, starred 
with campanulas, and stuck like a bracket 
in a deep crack of the rock, the two young 
girls stopped to look around and below them. 
Around them was the sombre richness of the 
forests, the deep valley which held in its many 
windings the steely ribbon of its stream ; the 
blue chains in the distance, hazy and trans- 
parent, lost themselves in the clouds. Below 
them was a sheer wall, broken from time to 
time by a flat projection, or a ledge where 
under the abundant foliage and hanging roots 
they could distinguish the corner of a step cut 
in the rock, or the upright of a ladder, once 
painted red. 

They go clear to the bottom,” cried Zoe, 
whose wild goat-like instincts which had al- 
ways been repressed were now awake. “ De- 
lightful ! Seven Ladders ! I ’ll go down one, 
at least.” 

“ Take care,” cried Adrienne, perhaps it 
is rotten.” 

“ Bah ! I don’t weigh anything.” 


202 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


Tucking her dress in her belt she sat down, 
put one foot on the first round, and seized the 
uprights with both hands. 

“ One, two, three,” she counted, as she 
went down the bars. “ It ’s as easy as. any- 
thing, Adrienne. Hurry and come with 
me!” 

Why should I ? ” 

“ To see the view.” 

“ We can see it from here. Come back, 
Zoe, they will be anxious about us.” 

As she spoke she gathered the campanulas 
which on frail stems swung their lilac bells 
within reach of her hand. Suddenly she 
heard a crash and a cry. She screamed too, 
threw herself forward, and saw Zoe hanging 
by her hands, while her feet beat the air 
in search of a support. A round had given 
way beneath her. By dint of stretching, 
the frightened feet at last met the round just 
below, and rested there while the stiffening 
fingers went in their turn a step farther down. 
When Zoe felt the earth at the foot of the 
ladder, she fell to the ground on the narrow 
terrace of the rock, hid her face in her dress, 
and burst into tears. 

“ O Zoe ! ” groaned Adrienne. You have 
hurt yourself. I am going down to you.” 

“ No, no, don’t come ! the ladder is rotten. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 203 

as you said. What shall I do, Adrienne? 
What shall I do? ” 

“Did you twist your foot? You are hurt? 
Tell me the truth, I beg.” 

“ No, no, I am not hurt, but oh ! why did 
I come here?” she cried, with a fresh burst 
of tears. 

“ Calm yourself, darling; be sensible/’ 

“ Sensible, that ’s very good,” said Zoe 
half rising, and looking around her in agi- 
tation. “Only how am I to get away from 
here? ” 

“ By the ladder,” said Adrienne, somewhat 
taken aback. 

“ Oh, never, never ! What ! you want me 
to put foot again on that rotten ladder ! 
I would n’t have believed that of you, 
Adrienne.” 

“Then, as I see no other way, I shall go 
after Samuel.” 

“ Oh, don’t go away ! ” cried Zoe, com- 
pletely unnerved. “ Don’t leave me here 
alone ! I don’t know what is the matter 
with me; I feel very ill.” 

“ Now don’t faint,” said Adrienne, with the 
severity which her mother had assured her 
was the best stimulant in such cases. “This 
is not the place, — you and I at opposite 
ends of the ladder, and no salts, — nothing.” 


204 ^ QUESTION OF LOVE, 

“ No, I won’t faint,” said Zoe, gathering 
her courage together; “but stay with me. 
Let us wait; some one will come in the 
end. I am going to sit down in this corner, 
where there is a little shade, and keep very 
quiet.” 

What with the heat, the fatigue, and 
hunger, she felt ready to swoon. She shut 
her eyes, and leaned her head against the 
cool rock in a corner where the sun had 
not yet penetrated. 

Adrienne began to call, in her clear, far- 
reaching voice, “ Samuel ! Samuel ! Flora ! 
Jules!” and at each call the children on the 
slopes answered by loud cries, which exas- 
perated her. 

“ Those squealers will prevent any one’s 
finding us,” she said impatiently. She sat 
down, and remained silent a moment. 

“ Adrienne,” said Zoe’s feeble voice. 

“Well, dear?” 

“ The view is fine, is n’t it? ” 

“ Superb,” said Adrienne, who was sitting 
with her back to it. 

“ Let us talk a little, won’t you ? ” 

“ Willingly ; but what about ? ” 

“ About something to eat,” said Zoe 
plaintively. 

“ You are poetic.” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 20 S 

** No, I am starved ; it will do me good to 
say soup, pastry, cherry pie.” 

“ Don’t hesitate, then. They are calling 
us ! ” cried Adrienne, rising with a bound ; 
“ I know it is Jules’s voice. Here, Jules, this 
way !” She guided him by her oh’s and ah’s, 
and the liberator at last appeared, emerging 
from the bushes at the summit of the rock. 

“Take care, Jules. There are the steps; 
turn to the left. Now do you see them?” 

“Where is Zoe?” he cried anxiously. 

His face was on fire, his cravat untied, his 
hair plastered in disorderly fashion on his 
temples. For half an hour he had been wan- 
dering among the rocks, full of lugubrious 
presentiments, while Samuel was beating the 
cover on the other side of the crest in paths 
nearly impassable ; and their cries, reflected 
by the echoes, had crossed those of the 
berry-pickers, and mutually deceived them 
as to the direction they should take. 

“ Zoe is there, safe and sound. Lean over 
a little, and you will see her. As she was 
going down this ladder a round broke under 
her foot, which convinced her of — I don’t 
know what — and she is not willing to 
budge.” 

“Poor darling!” said Jules; “but if the 
other rounds were strong enough to bear 


206 a question of love. 

her weight in going down, they are strong 
enough for it when she comes up.” 

“ As if you thought we could argue like 
that ! No, the whole ladder suddenly be- 
came rotten, and the slightest touch will 
make it crumble into dust. But speak to 
Zoe; I have wasted my breath over it.” 

He leaned over the ledge, and said, in a 
voice full of pity, “ Well, my poor Zoe ! ” 

She did n’t raise her head, but answered 
feebly, “ How are you ? ” 

“ I shall be with you presently,” he went 
on, putting his foot on the first round. 

Zoe gave a cry of terror, and was on her 
feet in a flash. “Don’t come down, Jules; 
you risk your life ! ” 

“ How absurd ! ” he answered. 

With eyes dilated by terror, which was in 
no wise feigned, she watched him coming 
holding her breath, and he all the time 
wishing that a bar might break, and put to 
the proof the heroism of which he felt him- 
self so full. But no incident of the sort was 
forthcoming; and when he landed, common- 
place as possible, somewhat confused, and 
not knowing what to say, he was consider- 
ably surprised to hear Zoe murmur, in a 
fervent, repressed voice, “ It was noble to do 
what you have done. Thank you, Jules.” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 20 / 

“ But, my dear,” he said, embarrassed, 
“ there was not the slighest danger.” 

“There might h^ve been; you did not 
know.” 

She nestled against him, and then the 
whole situation was transfigured. There was 
no longer a nervous, unreasonable girl, a 
pompous young man, a childish accident. 
Jules felt taller by many inches, in his joyous 
pride of the manly strength which protects, 
and Zoe gave herself up to the delicious 
confidence of weakness which knows itself 
protected. 

They did not speak. Jules put his arm 
around the delicate shoulders of his little 
fiancee, Zoe leaned her head on his arm, and 
that was all. Perhaps they did not them- 
selves understand what was passing within 
them, in those dim regions of sentiment where 
such strange metamorphoses take place all 
unknown to us, and where slow preparations 
are made for sudden changes. But they 
were both conscious of one thing, — that up 
to this moment they had been strangers one 
to the other. 

Full of a vague astonishment which gave 
to things around her a feeling of unreality, 
Zoe went up the ladder without thinking of 
it, and answered absently Adrienne’s mock 


208 


QUESTION OF LOVE, 


congratulations. Hardly had Jules in his 
turn reached the platform, when she seized 
his arm with an air of joyous possession she 
had never before showed. Adrienne was 
struck by it; she was interested in psychol- 
ogy, and while silently climbing with them 
the wooden slopes, she thought of what must 
have taken place. She could guess it very 
nearly, and then her thoughts lost themselves 
in a country without limits ; what might have 
been the result of another course of circum- 
stances, — if, for instance, Samuel had been 
the first to come? 


CHAPTER XII. 


A drienne could not rid herself of the 
thought, “ What if Samuel had come 
first ! ” 

But she was wrong to worry over this dis- 
quieting possibility. Even in Zoe’s state of 
shaken nerves, all ready to receive a shock, 
the child would most likely have felt no par- 
ticular emotion if chance had sent her Sam- 
uel instead of Jules. It was for Jules that 
the silent working of all these weeks had 
been, and it was to Jules or to no one that 
each incident was to accrue as a benefit. It 
is not the little shock, the slight push, which 
makes these immense upheavals. The stone 
has been gradually sliding over the slope for a 
long time before it reaches the edge over" which 
it falls at last. Before this tiny adventure, Zoe 
had not loved her cousin, but she was little 
by little drawing near to him. Love is not of 
such simple composition as our instinctive de- 
sire for unity leads us to believe. It is made 
up of this and of that, — of a thousand trifles, 
of poetry and egoism, of preconceived ideas, 
14 


210 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


of surprise and curiosity, of gratified self-love, 
and also, in sensitive and carefully watched 
girls, of a feeling of propriety and fitness in 
all things. Zoe never could have loved with- 
out this fitness, neither could she have trans- 
gressed certain social conventionalities. What 
she had loved first in Jules was Adrienne, and 
then his family, so charming, cultivated, and 
united ; her pride in being one of them, the 
joy of pleasing her grandfather, and all this 
sweet, caressing atmosphere which had sud- 
denly surrounded her, — all this she had loved, 
and finally, as the circle closed around her, 
she loved, little by little, Jules himself: his 
good manner, which inspired such perfect con- 
fidence; his way of talking to her, so atten- 
tive, yet he.sitating, as if in fear of displeasing 
her. It only needed the slightest incident, 
even a most commonplace one, to draw her 
to the centre of that circle where the mys- 
terious incantation takes place by wdiich the 
various elements, so long ready, melt into 
love. Zoe never wearied of dreaming about 
this marvel, this transfiguration of her soul. 
Between herself of yesterday, when she knew 
and felt nothing, when her eyes were ban- 
daged and her heart asleep, and herself of 
to-day, trembling with unknown feelings, daz- 
zled by the light, thrilling with tenderness 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


21 1 


and joy, there was some mysterious difference 
wrought by a miracle. She lived over again 
the old-time evenings, only the winter gone, 
but seeming so far away, with their oppres- 
sive sadness weighing upon her as Miss Ce- 
lanie read from the paper in her drawling 
voice, and Mr. Clovis sat cracking his fingers 
as he interlaced them. Nothing but shyness 
had then made her heart beat. She thought 
of her romance reading with a smile and air 
as of one experienced in such things. Aramis 
and Monte Cristo faded and were quickly ef- 
faced by the gray mists of the past, which from 
hour to hour seemed more like a dream. 

However, from this confused background 
several incidents stood out clearly, like the 
sun-touched mountain summits which rise 
above a sea of white fog. Zoe saw herself 
again, sitting on the sill of the hall window, 
her feet swinging, her head thrown back, her 
eyes following the flight of the swallows 
around the opening, all garlanded with the 
green vine. Samuel was beside her, saying, 
in a low, excited voice, many things of which 
she had no comprehension, but which sud- 
denly opened to her an undiscovered country. 
It was then, and for the first time, that she 
had felt a desire to love. How was it that 
he spoke of it so fervently that he made you 


212 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


desire it, — almost feel it? “ He loves some 
one,” thought Zoe. “ I hope he is happy, 
I owe him so much.” 

Then she thought of the long talk with 
Adrienne, the talk that had led them astray 
among the rocks, that had troubled her so 
with unconscious jealousy, by showing her 
that her calm friendship for Jules was not 
love, was less like it than the cold ray of the 
moon is like the ardent splendor of the sun. 
At that moment she had felt that all this was 
to her a book closed and sealed, — that others 
could freely turn pages written in a language 
she could not read. Was it not the feeling 
caused by this half-hour’s talk which, in mak- 
ing her sigh for an unknown joy, had made 
her so ready to seize it when it came? 

By a strange instinct, it was to Miss Celanie 
rather than to Adrienne that she chose to 
confide all those hidden feelings which words 
are so poor to express. Adrienne had known 
and analyzed too well the phase of friendly 
indifference. Zoe felt shy in describing to 
her a change at which she might laugh and 
mock. But Miss Celanie believed in love be- 
fore everything, during everything, after ev- 
erything, above everything. For her it was 
the essence of life; she discovered it when 
no shade of it existed, and where it did she 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


213 


basked in its presence like a lizard in the sun- 
shine. While Adrienne each morning wrote 
her letters, Zoe and her great-aunt took un- 
ending walks in the garden. Miss Celanie 
grew young again under the sweet influence 
of this intimacy. She was no longer the 
guardian and teacher, but the bosom friend. 
The loving gestures, the caresses, and the ex- 
clamations of her youth were all revived ; she 
wished to know all about it ; she shed tears 
of sympathy; but the more she triumphed, 
the harder grew the incredulous Flora. When 
Zoe tried to paint in halting words the strange 
things passing in her heart, hesitating, seeking 
a way to speak, it was her aunt who prompted 
her ; she understood it all, and was so good. 
She never teased, and when Zoe, in her mo- 
ments of remorse, accused herself of hard- 
heartedness, she even tried to prove that 
she had loved Jules all the time. And then 
how she talked of Jules ! With what loving 
tenderness, with what ready imagination, she 
discovered under his pleasing mediocrity the 
germs of everything that is brilliant and he- 
roic. Zoe loved to hear him praised, and 
while she smiled at the flights of the old 
maid’s fancy, according to which Jules, if he 
mounted a horse, was a centaur, or a hero 
if he so much as turned aside an old cow 


214 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


peacefully grazing by the roadside, or the 
leading genius of the age because he had 
put electric lights through the house, — while 
Zoe smiled at all this, she listened, too, well 
pleased, and hid all these things in her heart. 

Towards Jules, Zoe had always been very 
reserved. She was even more so now, and 
he could scarcely have suspected the place he 
had come to hold in this quiet, hidden life. 

One evening when it was raining, the whole 
family was gathered in the dining-room, 
around the obelisk lamp. . Zoe, idle and 
languid after the warm day, was amusing 
herself by passing her finger over the black 
designs of the ibises, arcs, circles, and scara- 
baei sharply traced on the white enamel, and 
she bade Jules decipher these hieroglyphics. 
As he showed small ingenuity in the task, 
the sarcasm of the two girls was poured out 
upon him. 

Miss Celanie unfolded her paper, and 
silence reigned. Running her eyes over the 
first three pages, she immediately went on to 
the fourth, — to the notices surrounded by 
black, — and commenced, in a melancholy 
drawl : “ The relatives and friends of the 

family — ” 

She stopped, and Zoe, lifting her head, met 
the anxious, questioning glance of her aunt. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


215 


The grandfather opened his eyes. ^‘Well, 
are you dumb? ” 

She hastily sought something farther on ; 
but as there was no other death notice, she 
would be obliged to invent some name to put 
in place of the one she feared to read, and 
that was quite impossible ; it might cause 
useless complications. “ I am afraid, father, 
that this news — ” 

“ What news? ” he exclaimed, irritably. 

It is one of your old friends.” 

“ I have n’t any, my daughter ; I have n’t 
any. Those of my time are all gone before,” 
he said, rubbing his long gray hands slowly 
together. “Who is it, Celanie? ” 

“ It will be a blow to you,” she murmured, 
still hesitating. 

“ If all these ceremonies are intended to 
prepare me, I am now prepared,” the old. 
man said, impatiently. “ The end comes to 
every one ; so then we must be reasonable.” 

“ It is Francis Dumont,” she said, anxiously 
watching the effect of this announcement. 

“ So ! Francis Dumont,” he repeated, run- 
ning his fingers through his long beard. 
“ Ah ! he is dead, poor Francis ! Two years 
older than I. So ! so ! he is dead ! I always 
said that his tobacco would play him some 
ugly trick. It 's bad for the throat, for the 


2i6 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


brain, for the eyes. Forty years ago I gave 
it up, — forty-two to be exact Do you re- 
member, Clovis? It was in ’48, the year of 
the great patriotic farces. Louis had just 
come back from Havana, — your grand- 
father, the father of your father, — and he 
had brought back a whole case of good 
cigars that I smoked so as not to hurt his 
feelings ; but once they were gone, I gave 
up smoking, and am all the better for it 
Ah ! Dumont is dead ; and the famous silver 
dish, — to whom will that go? ” 

“Shall I read you the obituary, father?” 
asked Miss Celanie. 

“ Read it, if you like, although I don’t trust 
obituaries very much. Do you all realize,” 
he said, straightening himself feebly, “ that I 
am to-day the oldest man in Neuchatel? I 
am really to be congratulated.” 

“ That is true, father ; I did not think of 
that,” said Miss Celanie, as she rose and 
came to kiss him. 

“ Master will excuse me,” said Flora, 
straight as a bayonet ; “ but it would be im- 
possible for me to congratulate him on such 
a subject. That would seem like rejoicing in 
the death of another, and that would bring 
you bad luck.” 

“ Hush ! ” cried the old man, rising as if 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 21 / 

galvanized, his two hands grasping the arms 
of his chair, and turning towards Flora his 
pale face and dim eyes. 

“Ah! this is inexcusable,” said Jules, 
passing before Flora to run to the old man. 
“ This is brutal. Dear sir, calm yourself, 
steady yourself.” 

There was a long silence. Flora for some 
moments stood the fire of all the indignant 
looks fixed upon her, then she slowly went 
out without saying a word. In her own 
hardy conscience she felt certain of having 
fulfilled a duty all the more imperative since 
there was no one else to discharge it. To 
correct her master was her special mission, 
and her greatest pleasure. 

“ That woman grates on my nerves ; she 
upsets me, and it is bad for me,” groaned 
Mr. Romanel, around whom they were all 
gathered. 

“ I will scold her, father,” said Miss Cela- 
nie, contritely. 

“ Oh, you I you are afraid of her; if she 
is so bitter against me, it is your fault,” re- 
torted the father. “ Flora is not bad at 
heart; I don’t want any one to scold her. 
If the mistress kept her place, the servant 
would do it too. No, I don’t want her 
scolded.” 


2i8 


A QUESTION OF LOVE 


There was almost a superstitious fear be- 
hind these words. The old man seemed to 
feel that the slender, frail thread of his life 
was in Flora’s hands. 

“ I did n’t ask,” he went on, as his restless 
eyes sought to pierce their own fog and 
read the faces of those around him, — “I 
did n’t ask to be congratulated on the death 
of Francis Dumont. Poor Francis! if it de- 
pended on me, he would be here still, warm 
and living. What was it I said ? I am the 
oldest inhabitant, — that’s incontestable, and 
there ’s no harm in saying so.” 

“ Not the least, and I hope you may be 
the oldest for a long time to come,” said 
Mr. Clovis, in a cordial voice, which trem- 
bled slightly. 

“ Thanks, Clovis, thanks I ” exclaimed the 
old man, shaking his hand. “ And to you 
too I wish a long life, to you all, — and to 
Flora,” he added. He had to say these 
words to lay the black shade which had for 
several moments hovered over him. 

Mr. Romanel had a wretched night. When 
his daughter went to his room in the morning 
she found him weak and helpless. 

“ You have slept badly, father? ” 

“Don’t ask stupid questions; I slept as 
one must sleep at my age. Go, tell Flora 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 219 

that I am not angry with her, — not at all. 
Do you hear? Why don’t you move?” 

Miss Celanie, astonished, departed with 
her message, and came back to say that 
Flora sent her respects to her master. 

“ That ’s right, that ’s right. She is a good 
girl ; a little rough, but her intentions are ex- 
cellent Sit down there, Celanie.” 

He raised himself on his pillows, and joined 
his thin hands before him. Miss Celanie 
looked at him, and her filial heart contracted. 
Never had her father seemed to her so old, 
so emaciated. So worn by life, which had dug 
furrows on his hands between the prominent 
blue veins, twisted the poor fingers, withered 
and dried the skin, dimmed the eyes. She 
remembered her father as he was at fifty, — 
tall, imposing, with a military air, his head 
held high, and a piercing eye. A keen 
regret seized Miss Celanie, who hung her 
head and thought of many things long 
past. 

“ Don’t fancy,” said her father, rousing 
from a long silence, “ that I am worse than 
usual. No, but at my age I ought to prepare 
— for — certain events. Where is Jules?” 
he interrupted himself to say. 

“ He is just gone, father.” 

“AndZoe?” 


220 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


She is with Adrienne.” 

“ I love to think of those two children. 
’T was I who made their marriage,” said the 
old man, plaintively. “■ Clovis did not think 
of it. But I arranged everything, and Jules 
shall have money to establish himself. My 
little girl will remember her grandfather. 
Celanie, it may be that I shall see Zoe’s child. 
We would have a fine baptism here at Gray 
Manse. No one has ever seen such a thing ! 
the child of my great-grandchild ! I should 
hold it in my own arms ; then I could go in 
peace.” 

O, that ’s all far off,” said Miss Celanie. 

“ Far off,” he repeated, with sudden irrita- 
tion. “ Let them get married, these young 
people; they have already been too long. 
Are you getting the trousseau ready? ” 

Miss Celanie’s face brightened. She drew 
from her pocket a note-book, whose leaves 
she began to turn to give her father pre- 
cise information as to the towels hemmed 
or to be hemmed, the sheets and table- 
cloths. 

“ Adrienne is a great help to us, she knows 
how things are done nowadays. Less linen 
than of old, the closets are too small ; Zoe is 
to have only three dozen sheets. But we have 
chosen such a beautiful linen, lustrous and 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


221 


soft as silk. The samples for the damask 
table-cloths came last night.” 

“ I want everything to be of the best, ” said 
the old man. 

“ Clovis says the same. Ah ! Zoe is a 
spoilt darling,” sighed Miss Celanie. 

Her father returned to his thoughts. Some- 
what weary, he closed his eyes and coughed 
from time to time. Miss Celanie took from 
the table an oval box with an enamelled 
cover. 

“Take a lozenge of marsh-mallow, father, 
for your cough.” 

“ Thank you,” he answered, reaching out 
his hand with an absent sort of docility. “ It 
is nothing, this cough. I am not anxious 
about it. My throat is my strongest point. 
But I am old.” 

His face contracted, his sunken mouth 
moved nervously for some seconds, as if he 
were talking to himself. 

“ Celanie,” said he finally, in an altered 
voice, “if ever anything happens to me — we 
must look things in the face — if I should 
die, Celanie — ” He could not go on. Miss 
Celanie, weeping, knelt by his bed, resting 
her forehead against the old hand which so 
rarely had given her a caress, but which never- 
theless was dear to her. 


222 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


** I should like to give you all the years 
that remain to me,” she murmured; “you 
love life, father.” 

“Yes, I love life!” he exclaimed, in sud- 
den despair; “one hundred years, — it is all 
too little when it is over.” 

“ P'ather we have a better hope,” she 
began — 

“ O yes, I know,” he said, with an im- 
patient movement. “Go away, now; I am 
going to get up.” 

But when she was at the door he called her 
back. “ Can’t this wedding come off in a 
fortnight?” 

“ But, father, the bans are not read.” 

“ That ’s true,” he said, humiliated at hav- 
ing lost for a moment his usual clearness. 
“ But in six weeks all can be in order? ” 

“Yes, — in case of necessity, we will get 
another woman in to work on the trousseau.” 

“ That ’s right. Go, tell them what I have 
decided, and arrange everything for me that 
all may be ready. Zoe will be glad later,” 
he added, rejuvenated, “to be able to say 
that her great-grandfather was at her wed- 
ding.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


D uring all the haymaking, day after 
day, there had been gathering in Father 
Voumard’s mind a black cloud of sullen dis- 
content — silent as yet — towards his second 
son Louis, with his apathy and want of energy. 
From morning to night the father asked hirn- 
self bitterly, why children, instead of being 
like father or mother, should reproduce so 
often a troublesome member of the family, 
upon whom, happily for the rest, six feet 
of earth are resting, — some ne’er do well, 
whose face, recalled in dreams, makes the 
dreamer sigh with relief when he wakes, or 
some weakling, who was never anything but a 
burden to his people. It is hard to see in 
your son’s face, in his gestures, in his lazy 
way of leaning on his elbows at table, or in his 
dragging footsteps, the manners and traits of a 
brother, who for thirty years was the torment 
of your life, for whom you worked, sowed, 
and reaped in bitterness. The present irri- 
tation is augmented by the old sorrow; you 
can no longer unravel the things of to-day 


224 ^ QUESTION OF LOVE. 

from those of the past, and unconsciously 
the faults of the son seem greater because 
they bring back the unhappy memory of the 
brother. You know from the beginning the 
hard road you must walk once more, and it 
almost seems that it is the same person who 
makes you travel it a second time. 

The farmer never failed to say, when he 
looked at Louis: “Yes, there he is, my 
brother Adolph all over again. He used 
to drag his rake behind him just like that. 
When work pressed, when a storm was 
almost on us, and the men were working as 
busily as ants, we were sure to tumble over 
him in some corner where he was sleeping 
like a good fellow. Can it be that such a 
thing could happen twice in the same family? 
We were careful not to revive the name, for 
fear of some resemblance.” 

As Voumard was a man of few words, pa- 
tient and self-contained, and as he feared a 
domestic disagreement because of the mother’s 
incomprehensible weakness for this child of 
little promise, he held his peace and shrugged 
his shoulders. He showed to Samuel only, 
and then but rarely, his growing exasperation. 
But with Samuel himself he had been dissat- 
isfied for some weeks past, for the young man 
had lost all heart in his work. What had be- 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 225 

fallen this boy, once so eager and so fond of 
the farm? He was so absorbed in his dreams, 
that he had not even counted the great carts of 
hay they had gathered in. He did his task, 
certainly, but without life ; and when it was 
done, he went apart far from the laughter and 
fun. It was with an evident effort that he 
occasionally braced himself and put on a care- 
less air to divert observation ; and the father, 
whose son’s indifference to all that this good 
earth had yielded wounded more deeply than 
any failure towards himself, felt his anxiety 
change into anger as he raged within himself. 
“ Let him say what troubles him, his parents 
are here to help him. Ah ! I don’t know 
what keeps me from shaking him, — this 
fellow. He vexes me more than Louis. I 
never counted upon Louis, who has nothing 
better than beet-juice in his veins; but Sam- 
uel, he was made up of his mother and me, 
and I did build on him ; and here he fails me, 
just as I was beginning to lean on him. Chil- 
dren are but torment and vexation of spirit.” 

His discontent with the older sons made 
him more severe with the young ones, who 
no longer dared open their mouths before 
him ; and even with his wife, whom he men- 
tally reproached for her deplorable weakness, 
and for her air of seeming to know more 
IS 


226 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

about Samuel than she was willing to tell. 
But she would not explain. 

He has told me nothing. I have ques- 
tioned him, and he said we could not do any- 
thing, you and I. Let him alone. Has n’t 
he the right, at his age, to keep his own secret? 
He does his work at least.” 

“ His own and Louis’s, as far as that goes,” 
said the farmer sullenly, folding his arms and 
walking the floor. 

“ Now, there you are, falling on to Louis ! 
What has he done, — poor Louis? ” 

“ O, nothing, as usual. I sent him to 
reap the tail end of the little field behind the 
oats, there was work for an hour at the most. 
At milking time I sent the youngsters to find 
him, and they came back to say that he was 
sleeping there like a tramp who has drunk 
more than he can carry. If there was a hos- 
pital for the disease of sleepiness I ’d send 
him there. I would rather pay his board 
than to have him under my eyes another sea- 
son. It ’s like having to drink blood ! ” 

“ I should like to know,” said his wife, 
straightening her thin neck, “ why you com- 
plain to me of these things. Who does he 
take after, this boy, — your side or mine? 
You ought to remember your brother 
Adolph.” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE, 


227 


When his wife pronounced this name, the 
farmer could not hold up his head. There 
had been no idlers in her family. 

Samuel was going through a harder phase 
than the one of acute suffering, in which 
the trembling and vibrating intensity of suf- 
fering almost made him forget the cause. 
He felt nothing, and his heart was as cold 
and heavy as a stone. He was indifferent to 
everything. In the morning when the gray 
day lay before him, empty of all hope, he set 
himself mechanically to his daily task, and 
had no other wish than to tire himself so 
thoroughly that he should sleep at night 
without thinking of anything. Once upon 
a time, and not long ago, his ambition, his 
plans, made the morrow seem slow in com- 
ing, the grass slow in growing, the harvest 
late in ripening, and the hours of a sum- 
mer day all too short for his eager work. 
Everything had been pleasant to him then, — 
work, rest, his daily bread, his pride in being 
a good reaper, the day begun in the dawn 
and the dew, the day as it closed, the idea of 
the winter in which he hoped to learn the 
trade of a wheelwright, so as to be fit for 
everything when he should have his own 
farm. It had always been understood that 
until he was twenty-five he should work for 


228 


A QUESTION OF LOVE, 


his father, — for the common purse, — and 
that then his father should rent him a small 
place and establish him upon it; — three or 
four cows to begin with, a horse to cart the 
wood, some fine new hay-carts, some wheel- 
barrows and tubs, and those wooden milk ves- 
sels of fine white ash, smooth as satin, and 
for his flock a number of bells hanging from 
wide leather collars, and many other things 
which would cost a pile of money. Sam- 
uel knew that his father, economical as he 
was, would grudge no expense in fitting out 
his eldest son. They had talked of it often 
on Sunday afternoons, and the peaceful pic- 
ture of a little gray house with overhanging 
roof, its yard filled with currant bushes and 
a box of pinks about the doorway, was before 
their eyes as they talked. This simple dream 
held all their future, and the happiness of 
their life. Now the young man turned from 
it with bitter impatience, a mournful disgust 
for himself and his folly. He cared for 
nothing; even the full flow of his love for 
those belonging to him seemed to have run 
dry. He could hardly endure the gay noise 
of the little ones; he roughly set aside the 
sympathy his mother had once or twice tried 
to offer him. The thought of what she knew 
was intolerable to him, and, shut within him- 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


229 


self, he was only conscious of the great injus- 
tice of things. But he was quite persuaded 
that he was to suffer no more. Only the 
sight of Zoe pierced him with a sharp pang, 
almost physical; and so he avoided every 
meeting with her. When he reasoned with 
himself, he tried to prove that things were 
still as they had been, but it ended each time 
in his being overwhelmed with discourage- 
ment ; so he gave up the fight, and the wound 
gaped afresh. 

One evening, having come in from work 
later than the others, he was taking supper 
alone on a corner of the table under the little 
window cut like a loophole in the thick wall. 
The low arcade of the vaulted roof was be- 
hind, full of shadow, the wall in front of him 
was black, and through the heavy frame of 
the window a little corner of the sky, of lim- 
pid green, shone like a jewel or some mystic 
beryl in its setting. Its clear cold light fell 
on Samuel’s face, and from the other end of 
the kitchen, by the blinking star of the small 
red lamp, his mother watched him without 
speaking. His face was so strangely changed 
in these last weeks ! All its lines were ac- 
centuated, — the softness of contour and ex- 
pression which belongs to early youth, the 
mobility of the features which no habits nor 


230 A QUESTION OF LOVE, 

customs had fixed as yet, — all had gone, and 
in their stead an air of sad absorption, severe 
and almost hard, had traced lines like those 
the burin cuts in metal. The mother sighed, 
— she dared not speak, — Samuel had made 
her almost afraid of him by his silence. 
She well knew of whom he was thinking, but 
how was he doing it ! She dreaded to say 
anything which might jar upon the mood of 
her son. 

Suddenly the trap door, which led from 
the barn floor above to the staircase, was 
heard to open,, and the rays of a lantern 
shot through the figures cut in the black 
baluster. 

“ Is that you, husband? ” called the wife. 

“Where’s Samuel?” he asked, leaning 
over the rail. “ I want to know what ’s 
become of the English pitchfork. Do you 
hear, Samuel? I ask you where the pitch- 
fork is.” 

“ I don’t know.” 

His air of indifference vexed the father, 
who came down the last steps quickly, crossed 
the kitchen, and planted himself in front of 
the young man, his brows frowning, his face 
full of discontent. 

“You don’t know! You ought to know. 
It’s your business to look after these things. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


231 


I can’t be everywhere. I kill myself with work 
and care, and my son, who should help me, is 
interested in nothing, sees nothing.” 

Samuel raised his head. He saw the whit- 
ening hair, the shoulders bent with carrying 
the burden of the day, the dry, tanned face 
of the rough peasant, his father. He looked 
at the knotty hands which had worked for 
him since his babyhood, and as he looked 
his heart contracted. How could it be that 
two little hands, white and proud, which had 
never given him more than their finger-tips 
to touch, — how could it be that they had 
become infinitely more precious to him than 
these kind protecting hands of his father 
and mother? Was it just? A wave of com- 
passion, of tenderness, flowed over him. 

“ I am wrong, father,” he murmured. 

“ I don’t say that,” said the father, soften- 
ing suddenly. “No, I don’t say that; you 
have worries, and you work. I can’t re- 
proach you with anything, but your mind 
is not on it.” And turning suddenly at the 
sound of a halting step which he heard at 
the door, “ Louis,” he thundered, “ where 
have you put the English pitchfork?” 

An explanation followed, as long as un- 
satisfactory. The last time the farmer had 
seen the fork it was at one end of the barn 


232 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

on an out of the way heap of hay ; and he 
had said to Louis, “ Go, get that fork, for fear 
it may be forgotten in the hay.” 

“Did you go? When you are told to do 
a thing, you must be followed to see that it ’s 
done. Did you go?” 

“ Wait, — I think so,” said Louis, rubbing 
his nose slowly to quicken his memory. 

“Try to be sure. And then where did you 
put it, that it can’t be found? ” 

“ Really, I forget,” said he, seeing that 
there was no escape. “ Some one came to 
ask me something else. I must be every- 
where at once,” he added in a mournful 
tone. 

“ It is true that without you we should not 
know how to turn round,” said his father 
with an air of cold disdain. “ I see what has 
happened ; hay has been piled on that heap, 
and the fork is buried beneath it, because 
I was not obeyed at the moment. It will 
be eaten up with rust by next spring, — a 
fork of English steel which cost nine francs. 
Things can’t go on like this.” 

The anger which showed in his voice and 
eyes fixed Louis in his place, “ You must 
take that lantern, climb into the hayloft, and 
throw down every bit of hay until the fork is 
found. Now go.” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


233 


Louis hung his head ; he moved away 
slowly, muttering words which he dared not 
pronounce aloud. His father made three steps 
after him, and laid such a heavy hand on his 
shoulder that the boy staggered under it. 
“To-morrow morning you shall make your 
bundle and go,” he said in a calm, hard 
voice, and in the midst of a silence unbroken 
by a sound or breath, — a silence which filled 
the vast kitchen where they all sat motionless 
and terrified. 

Instinctively Louis turned his eyes to his 
mother, but she shook her head, and made 
him a sign to go. She knew her husband ; 
she knew this voice, this look. In their mar- 
ried life he had spoken thus only two or 
three times, and what he then ordered had 
been done. The first time, — she remembered 
it well, — being a very young woman, she had 
protested, wept, and then pouted for a fort- 
night, without changing her husband’s deter- 
mination one iota. Many years after, when 
the aunt in Gex had wished to take one of 
the boys, doubtless to make him her heir if 
he pleased her, the mother had wished to 
send Louis ; but to all her entreaties, all her 
temper, the farmer had opposed his calm, 
victorious will, without so much as consent- 
ing to argue. And each time, in the bottom 


234 ^ QUESTION OF LOVE, 

of her heart, despite the irritation of thwarted 
desire, Mother Voumard had acknowledged 
that her husband was right. 

Without a word, she crossed the kitchen, 
came near to Samuel, and sat down while her 
husband turned his back as he walked the 
floor with hasty strides ; she seized the son’s 
hand, and pressed it, with that quick, trem- 
bling grasp which is an entreaty. “ You 
must help me,” she murmured, with half- 
closed lips. “I see very well,” she said, half 
in a whisper, as the father in his feverish 
walk passed near her, “ I see that Louis is 
exasperating to a degree. He means well, 
but he lacks energy, — just like your brother 
Adolph,” she could not help adding. 

“Just so,” said the husband, stopping be- 
fore her with folded arms. “ But he shall 
never sponge on his family as Adolph did. 
He shall go and win his bread.” 

“ How? What can he do? ” she pleaded. 

“ He can go as a servant.” 

“ Louis ! And when people know that he 
is Voumard’s son, what will they think? ” 

“Just what they please. That is the least 
of my anxieties.” 

“ He will go wrong, if we let him wander 
out into the world,” groaned the mother, 
showing at least her secret fear. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 235 

“ Do you think he is going right, here 
at home?” 

“ Father, have patience once more,” inter- 
rupted Samuel. “ I will talk to him. He 
listens to me.” 

“ I should think he might well listen to 
you, when you and George do his work to 
set him an example. I too, in my young 
days, worked to set an example to idlers, 
and much came of it. People like that only 
eat and drink while others work. I know 
all about it; and I don’t want — I don’t 
want,” he cried, growing more and more 
excited as the memory of old griefs came 
back — “I don’t intend that my good sons 
shall have their youth poisoned as mine 
was.” 

“ Oh ! sh ! ” said his wife, “ some one is 
coming.” She gave a sigh of relief as she 
went to the door to receive whoever it might 
be arriving so opportunely. 

“ Good evening. Take care of the step, 
and if I may be so bold, please wipe your 
feet,” she said, keeping back the man until 
her husband could compose himself. 

“ Always fussy, Mrs. Voumard, always 
fussy ! But don’t be afraid, my soles are as 
clean as butter moulds, — clean as butter 
moulds,” he repeated, as he came into the 


236 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


kitchen. It was a trick of his to repeat his 
last words, and in a sort of decrescendo. He 
shook the farmer’s hand, and then Samuel’s, 
before sitting down. 

“What’s the news?” said Mrs. Voumard, 
seeing that her husband could not talk. 

“ There is much new, — much new in the 
world,” he answered, shaking his head. 
“Have you finished haying?” 

“Yes, everything is in.” 

“Ah ! you have many hands, — three strong 
boys, and the little ones already big enough 
to rake about the wagons, and a father who 
understands making his people work.” 

The woman looked furtively at her hus- 
band, fearing some outbreak. He only went 
on with his walk, his hands behind his back, 
his head lowered. 

“Were you astonished to hear the death 
of Mr. Francis Dumont,” suddenly said the 
neighbor. 

“ When a man is already a hundred, you 
can’t expect him to live a century more,” 
said Mrs. Voumard. 

“Yes, yes, I know. All the same, I was 
startled without being surprised. You know 
that his will disinherits his nephew, Justin 
Perlet, and that everything goes to others. 

“ Not possible,” exclaimed Mrs. Voumard, 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 237 

who could not repress her interest; “ but that 
don’t touch us,” she added. 

“Yes it does, — more than you think, at 
least; but you’ll see. Justin is in a boiling 
rage, the land that he holds, ‘ The Rabies,’ 
which belonged to old Dumont as you know, 
now goes to the other nephew, and Justin 
and his old woman, who had hoped to be 
the owners to the end of their days, swear 
that they will not pay a penny of rent to a 
rascal who influenced the uncle’s will. To 
be short, there is bad blood. I would do 
better not to repeat their hard words, for 
you can never tell what it may lead to, and 
then there would be fresh troubles. What 
is certain is, that Justin moves out in fifteen 
days.” 

“ But the lease? ” said Voumard. 

“ There was no lease ; it was a family ar- 
rangement, you know. ‘That will be all right,’ 
they say, and it is so right that some day they 
are ready to tear each other to pieces over it. 
Here is a house which will be empty from 
one day to another, — the barn full of hay 
clear to the roof, and not a beast to eat it. 
It ’s no easy matter at the beginning of winter 
to find a farmer willing to take it, like that, 
all of a sudden ! ” 

“And Justin? what will he do? Does he 


238 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


take away all his cattle and stock? ” brusquely 
asked his wife. 

Then she turned her eyes upon Samuel, as 
if to force into his mind, along with the man’s 
answer, her secret thought. 

“ They think, — that is just the matter, — 
that he ’ll be glad to find some buyer,” said 
the officious neighbor. “ His beasts are fine, 
and he ’ll let them go cheap, and all the out- 
fit for farming, and the dairy is in good con- 
dition. You can understand that, when they 
come into town and take a small lodging, 
they have no need of their furniture either; 
so they could sell some of that too, to who- 
ever takes their place. Ah ! if only I had 
sons to settle ! ” And having said thus much, 
the neighbor changed the conversation. 

In a few minutes Samuel rose and went 
out. He stopped in the yard to look at the 
limpid sky, in whose crystal depth shone the 
silvery drop of a distant star. Across the 
fields the group of young ash trees with their 
slender trunks and feathery tops rose on 
the horizon. These things that he loved he 
wished not to see, for they only kept alive his 
pain, they were too closely allied with his sor- 
row. Once or twice the idea of leaving for 
America had crossed his mind, but such an 
extreme measure did not please him. He 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 239 

did not want to forget, — no, his pain was all 
too dear; but he felt that in sinking into this 
torpor he was falling below his own level. 
He must seek a new background. 

This indirect offer w'hich had come to his 
father, was not this a help coming in time? 
Already some of his old impetuosity was 
waking, his mind was moving towards new 
perspectives. Some responsibility, some in- 
terest, something which should absorb him 
entirely, — that was what he needed rather 
than the well-ordered work of home, rather 
than the cut and dried task where his mind 
had no care. 

This estate, the Rabies, was only about 
three quarters of an hour from Gray Manse, 
but in another valley, with another horizon, 
a different soil, something ruder and more 
savage, fewer fields and pastures. The estate 
was small, five cows at the most, whose milk 
was carried to a neighboring dairy. All by 
himself, Samuel thought, or perhaps with the 
help of a little cowboy, he could manage 
it, and what solace, what deliverance, to be 
alone ! 

He was weary of controlling his face, of 
watching his every word, of fearing that even 
in his sleep a word of his dream might be- 
tray his secret ; weary of avoiding his moth- 


240 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

er’s look; weary of sitting at the table and 
having them say, “ Why don’t you eat? ” — of 
not being able to put his head into his hands 
when came those bitter moments in which 
the injustice of life seemed unendurable. As 
he turned the corner of the house and drew 
near the barn, he saw a light shining on the 
grass through a crack in the door. He went 
up, pushed aside the shutter, and looked in. 
Dimly he saw a shadow moving at the top 
of the hay under the beams. 

“ Is that you, Louis? have you found it? ” 
cried he. 

“ Ah ! yes, I must spend the night here 
undoing the heap,” answered Louis, throw- 
ing down an armful of hay, and at the same 
time delivering himself of a volley of inter- 
jections which it is not customary to print. 

“I ’ll help you,” said Samuel, seizing a fork 
and climbing on the heap. 

For some moments they worked without 
speaking. Samuel was following out his 
thought, and so absorbed that he started 
when his brother began to speak. “ Is it 
serious, do you think?” 

“ What? ” he asked, waking from a dream 
in which he had seen the little house upon 
the mountain of which Zoe had chattered; 
the little house where the “ china was all 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


241 


blue,” and “ the little woman who set the 
table ” was Zoe, and the man who hastened 
along the pretty road under the beeches was 
himself. 

“ Yes, what father said to me, — to make 
up my bundle and leave to-morrow. Is it in 
earnest? ” 

“ I am afraid so,” answered Samuel se- 
verely. “ Father has had a great deal of 
patience with you, but everything comes to 
an end.” 

Then this boy, so big and heavy, and 
without will, threw himself down in the hay, 
his head on his knees, and began to sob. 
“ They treat me like a dog,” he groaned. 
“No one speaks for me ; I am driven away 
like a vagabond.” 

“ That is not true,” said Samuel. “ Mother 
tried to speak for you, and you well know 
she took your part whenever she could. You 
know it only too well, because you trust to 
it ; but the pitcher can go to the well too often. 
All haying time I have seen father getting 
discouraged with you.” 

“ Is it my fault,” said Louis, lifting his 
head, “if the heat overcomes me? Hot 
weather puts me to sleep, — cold too. I 
don’t know how I am made, — I think I have 
a disease.” 

•16 


242 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

“ It is possible,” thought Samuel, who then 
said aloud, in a more indulgent tone, “ But 
you must struggle against it ; every one has 
something to fight.” 

“ Oh ! I will fight hard if only they will let 
me stay at home. I ought to have encourage- 
ment, and then I could do as well as the next, 
but I must be treated kindly. You know how 
to take me ; we have always gotten along 
well together, we two, have we not?” 

“ That 's true, my poor Louis,” said Sam- 
uel absently. 

An idea had just occurred to him, but he 
made no haste to welcome it. Instead of 
his healing silence, instead of the solitude in 
which his tired heart could rest, a new and 
harassing duty, a fresh strain, presented itself 
to his mind. No, it was too much to ask of 
him, he could never carry this burden. He 
went on with his work in silence. 

Louis rose slowly, still grumbling in an 
undertone, took his fork, and soon the hay 
was showering down on the floor where 
it piled up with a gentle murmuring sound. 
In a moment more, the fork’s teeth, as 
they were thrust in, struck against some- 
thing hard. 

“ At last, and by good luck ! I thought I 
should be at this all night,” said Louis, for- 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 243 

cing in his arm, and drawing out the sharp 
points of the English pitchfork. “ Ah ! the 
wicked thing ! ” 

When, at the end of an hour, the barn was 
put in order, Samuel, wrapt in thought, went 
back to the kitchen. The idea had not left 
him, it was like a goad to him. He sat down 
by his mother, who was peeling some vege- 
tables, all alone, under a lamp hung from an 
arch. She gave him a sad little shake of the 
head, and he saw she had been crying. 

“Has father changed his mind?’' asked 
Samuel. 

“ No. I tried to talk to him ; but you know 
what he is, — a rock. He is willing to do for 
you whatever he can,” she added, lest he 
might fancy that Louis was her sole care. 
“ He is thinking of this business, and I should 
not be surprised if he set you up at the 
Rabies.” 

“ In that case I should take Louis with 
me,” he said. He was astonished that, after 
all, it was so easy to say. He was glad 
that the words once said bound him to their 
fulfilment. 

“ Ah ! if you would do that ! ” his mother 
said, with a little tremble in her voice. 

“ I will do it. We get along together, 
Louis and I. I will keep him under my eye. 


244 ^ QUES7'I0N OF LOVE. 

I will help him, and you shall have some 
peace of mind, poor mother ! ” 

As he spoke thus, some of his old ardor 
came back, a smile lit up his eyes, and he felt 
as in old days, — impatient for the morrow 
that he might begin work. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


G ray manse, in the master’s quarters, 
had been upset for the last fifteen days 
with all the preparations for the wedding, to 
which the whole Morier family was expected. 
Flora was on her mettle, rising before day- 
light to make a note of the ideas which came 
to her in the night, going to bed after all the 
others, and not even allowing herself her si- 
esta in the afternoon. But she did not com- 
plain, they had given her assistants, and these 
she led like a major general. She was con- 
sulted on every subject, and was in her glory. 

On the first floor in the north room, (a 
tranquil retreat devoted to the drying of alder 
and linden leaves, and where garlands of 
mushrooms encircled the window,) a tribe of 
needlewomen sewed and chattered, and still 
hurried on, for everything must be done by 
Wednesday, — the day when the whole outfit 
was to be sent to the wash. 

Miss Celanie ruled here ; she came and went, 
quite youthful once again, her back straight, 
her hair very smooth, and almost a suspicion 


246 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

of color on her pale cheeks. She loved to take 
from her drawers the fine linen handkerchiefs, 
marvellously wrought with open work, to show 
the sewing-women how things were done in 
her day. Sometimes, when she felt she was 
too happy, she would stop, shake her head, 
and ask herself, “ What if Jules were at that 
moment being crushed by a locomotive ! ” 

In the next room was Adrienne, straining 
every nerve ; for there they were getting up 
fashionable dresses for Zoe, and Zoe would 
not allow a button to be put on without her 
cousin’s criticism. In addition, she exacted 
that of her grandfather and Cousin Clovis. 
As soon as any garment was fitted, she would 
rush off, all bristling with pins, all covered 
with white bastings, would surprise the two 
old gentlemen in the midst of a talk, and 
gravely turn herself round before them, hold- 
ing up her arms that they might see the folds 
of her skirt. 

“ Is that pretty. Grandpa? Is it as pretty 
as the dresses that Grandma wore? Miss 
Felicia says they have gone back to the 
sleeves of fifty years ago. This is my trav- 
elling dress; I chose it gray, because Jules 
likes that color.” 

“ Are things getting on up there?” would 
ask Cousin Clovis. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 247 

“ They are hurrying them, but there is 
so much to do! You have given me too 
many lovely things, Grandpa; and you, dear, 
dear good Cousin.” 

She would kiss them impetuously, and then 
run away, sowing her pins on the staircase. 
The two old men would look at each other 
and smile with satisfaction. 

It is I, however, who made this marriage,” 
the grandfather would say, for perhaps the 
hundredth time, “ From the very first, I saw 
that they were made one for the other. You 
— although you are younger than I — did 
not see that.” 

‘‘ But is n’t she changed, — our little girl ! ” 
Mr. Clovis answered slowly, examining the 
joints of his old fingers as he intertwined 
them, as if in these he read the future. “ She 
laughs and sings about the house. But 
that is not the greatest change. It ’s in her 
manner with Jules, looking at him as if she 
forgot all else around her, seeming provoked 
if every one does not stop to listen when he 
speaks. Poor Zosette, if she knew how I 
watched her, how she would blush ! Ah ! 
surely for this once it is a question of love.” 

“A question of love! pouf!” said the 
grandfather, thrusting out his lip disdainfully. 
“ What do you know about love? ” 


248 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


And Mr. Clovis, who never disputed, ac- 
knowledged that in fact his condition of celi- 
bacy gave him no right to an opinion on the 
subject. 

He had no eyes save for his Zosette, his 
“little bird.” But if he had studied Jules 
Morier with the same attention he would have 
discovered in the young man as profound a 
change, — something like a broadening of his 
heart, or even of his mind, — less of a narrow 
sensitiveness, less of a quickly touched vanity ; 
he would have seen a constant effort, in which 
there was something humble and touching, 
to enter into all Zoe’s views, to disappoint 
her in nothing, and in everything concerning 
her an almost exaggerated idea of his own 
unworthiness. Always “ correct ” and with- 
out any great originality, he was no longer so 
commonplace, since he had learned to forget 
himself. The idea that he was making a 
good match had been disagreeable from 
the day when he really loved Zoe, and he 
could not bear to be reminded of it; every 
allusion made to it by his mother — a very 
positive lady — was for him a fresh mortifica- 
tion. He worked with ardor, substituting 
assiduity and minuteness for the genius he 
would never have, to gain esteem, confidence, 
and a moral stand which he could offer Zoe 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


249 


in exchange for the material position she was 
able to give him, — which she gave him, how- 
ever, without knowing it herself, for Mr. 
Romanel and Mr. Clovis, the first to save 
Jules’s pride, and the second to preserve Zoe’s 
happy ignorance, whispered no word of their 
plans. 

Zoe was painfully disappointed when she 
learned that Samuel would not be at the 
wedding. Farmer Voumard came himself, 
of course, to decline the invitation, having 
waited for this act of ceremony until a 
Sunday, so as not to be forced to dress up 
on a working day. He pleaded that his wife 
was too fatigued, that Samuel’s installation 
at the Rfibles had given them much care, 
and had made them lose time, that they were 
not accustomed to large entertainments, but 
that none the less did they wish the young 
couple every prosperity. 

As to Samuel, he was up to his eyes in 
work. In his heart, the farmer was more 
than surprised at the decided refusal of his 
son, whose place he would willingly have 
taken at the Rubles, for the day of the wed- 
ding. But his wife had upheld Samuel^, and 
the farmer, who never disagreed with her 
except on great occasions, abstained from all 
comment. 


250 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


“ Why, we hardly said good by to each 
other,” exclaimed Zoe, with sorrow. “ I did 
not know when he went that he was to be 
buried there, and never come back. I shall 
go to see him there,” she went on suddenly ; 
“ we were too good friends to part without 
a friendly word. If we could use this fine 
afternoon, Jules ! The last Sunday that I 
shall be Zoe Romanel,” she added, with a 
little sigh. 

“Does that make you sad?” he asked, 
becoming grave instantly. 

“No, my dear Jules, no,” she answered, 
laughing. “ My aunt will tell you that the 
most elementary conventionality requires me 
to give a little sigh from time to time.” 

In this matter Jules was positively tire- 
some ; the least shade on Zoe’s face alarmed 
him into imagining that she was regretful, 
and she wearied herself in protests against 
his gratuitous fears. Adrienne, who was 
present, asked to be of the party ; she 
was not altogether pleased with Zoe’s idea, 
but she dared not say so. Without any 
positive proof she was full of anxiety, and, 
if she had allowed herself, would have had 
unmeasured sympathy for Samuel. “ Going 
with these two lovers who see nothing but 
each other in all the universe, perhaps I shall 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 25 I 

be of service to the proud fellow whom Zoe 
should leave in peace.” 

From Gray Manse to the Rabies the road 
was very pretty. Climbing a gentle slope, 
strewed with dried leaves, up to the top of 
the forest, you could see at the foot of the 
other slope a tiny valley, green and peaceful, 
shut in on all sides by pines. On the west 
it rose towards plateaus, and towards chains 
whose openings were filled by other chains, 
of a more diaphanous gray, fading into in- 
distinctness like smoke. The sky of a deli- 
cate pale blue, crossed by fleecy clouds, like 
folds of transparent gauze, bathed the valley 
in a quiet, autumnal light. On the fields 
the long velvety shadows of the hedges and 
trees stretched themselves ; a few cows came 
and went with drowsy tinkling of their bells ; 
and the shepherd’s small fire sent up its 
blue smoke, which clung to the grass and 
then rose only to tangle itself in the nut- 
bushes at every breath of wind. A gray, 
melancholy atmosphere softened the light, 
deepened the blue of the shadows, and 
gave an air of stateliness to the simple 
landscape. 

At the first bend of the path, you could 
see the farm-house, — low and little, with its 
great roof of new shingles of a pretty slate- 


252 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

blue, — hidden away, for fear of the wind, 
in a niche of the mountain. Its walls to the 
height of the first story were built with rude 
masonry of gray stones, hewn two hundred 
years ago, and on this solid foundation the 
narrow planks of the wooden balconies had 
a singularly incongruous and provisional 
look, although they themselves had been 
in existence some half a century. Near 
the door a small garden stretched to the 
meadow wall, and on this wall Samuel was 
sitting. 

When he saw the walkers coming down 
the path, he rose and went forward. He 
had not expected this visit, he had not 
even wished it; but he hardened his face, 
and Zoe could read nothing there but a new 
gravity of expression. 

“ I wanted to see your housekeeping 
before my own going,” she said, holding 
out her hand. “ Now, show me all your 
house.” 

Without knowing why, he dreaded to see 
her cross his threshold ; but once she was 
inside, he understood his instinct of repug- 
nance. He felt that this was the end of it 
all, — even of his poor dreams. The vision 
of Zoe in her dress of cream-colored wool, 
fastened at the collar by a turquoise brooch, 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


253 


a present from Jules, with her slender waist, 
her white neck, her tiny gloved hands, and 
the proud, delicate air of all her person, — 
this vision could not linger in the smoke- 
begrimed kitchen, which suddenly seemed 
sordid and ugly to Samuel. Never more 
could he hug to himself the dear fancy that 
she might have gone with him to these 
blackened walls, — she was too out of place 
there, too unreal. He longed to see Zoe 
go out. Since the break had come, why 
prolong its agony? 

“It is n’t as pretty as your kitchen at 
Gray Manse,” said Zoe, with a somewhat 
embarrassed smile, “ it ’s a little dark. My 
poor Samuel,” she cried in a sudden burst 
of compassion, “ it seems to me you are 
exiled.” 

He caught his breath for an instant ; his 
face became rigid in the effort he made to 
control it. 

“ How absurd you are ! ” said Adrienne, 
almost vexed. “What difference does the 
kitchen make to a farmer’s house? What he 
needs is a dry barn, a good stable, and fine 
fields — ” 

“ You talk like a true farmer’s wife,*” said 
Samuel, who in this short time had regained 
possession of himself. 


254 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


I have a grain of sense, that’s all.” 

Zoe looked at her cousin astonished by her 
severe tone. “ It is true,” she said gently, 
“ that I was carried away by my first impres- 
sion. But Samuel seemed so sad.” 

“ The house is old,” said he, “ and quite 
neglected ; the farmer before me was old, 
and his wife too. But mother is going to 
lend us Marianna, who will live here, and 
keep everything in good order.” 

“ I am so glad,” murmured Zoe. 

She merely glanced into the bedroom 
when Samuel opened the door, and went 
out as soon as she could. Once outside, 
she recovered her gayety. Jules, with his 
unfailing politeness, praised all he saw, and 
asked questions of Samuel. He was inter- 
ested in gathering all sorts of information 
about agricultural matters, — in the price of 
wagons, in the sale of wood either for fuel 
or timber. All these details, if exact, might 
be useful at some time in the work in 
which he was at present engaged, — the 
railroads of the region. As they talked, 
they went round the house, and finally 
came to the inclined plane leading to the 
barn door; this they went up to visit the 
barn, as they had visited everything else, 
like conscientious friends. 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


255 


“ This cannot interest you,” said Samuel, 
turning to Zoe, as he pushed open the great 
door. “ Rural things don’t speak to you. 
You acknowledged once — do you remem- 
ber? — that between the mare’s new collar 
and her old one you could not see any 
difference.” 

“ What a memory ! But I do recollect. 
It was the day we were going to the station 
to meet my unknown cousins. How my 
heart did beat ! I was so frightened ! ” 

And with the movement of a happy child 
she drew close to Jules, whose arm she was 
holding, and he could not resist drawing her 
closer still, slipping his arm round her waist. 
Then ashamed — both of them — at having 
so far forgotten themselves, they lowered their 
eyes. 

Samuel had made a step forward; Adrh 
enne, blushing slightly, gave her brother a 
reproachful look. Just then they heard in 
the hay above their heads a great stirring 
of the dry stems, then a smothered exclama- 
tion, and the same sound beating a retreat 
towards the other end of the heap. 

“Who’s there?” said Adrienne, alarmed. 
“You have no rats here, I hope.” 

“ Rats in the hayloft ! No,” said Sam- 
uel, laughing. “ It must be that Louis 


256 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 


was sleeping up there, and we have wakened 
him.” 

“ But is he always asleep ? ” said Zoe. “ I 
never heard his name without some one’s 
adding, ‘ He ’s asleep.’ ” 

“ It ’s a disease with him, and how can it 
it be helped? It ’s no harm for him to sleep 
on Sunday afternoons; since he has been 
with me he has done his share in the 
work.” 

“ Thank you, Samuel. You take my part,” 
cried a voice, which seemed to come from 
the rafters. 

They all stopped, thinking that Louis was 
about to appear on the scene ; but he did not 
show himself, and Zoe, seizing Adrienne by 
the arm, dragged her quickly out of the 
barn. 

“ It ’s positively grotesque,” she whispered. 

I don’t like Louis. He never pleased me'. 
His mother spoils him abominably, so Flora 
says. Poor Samuel ! Fancy what it will be 
to pass a winter in tete-a~tite with such a 
pudding-head.” 

“ You would do well,” said Adrienne, “ not 
to show him your compassion so clearly. 
Besides, he is not so much to be pitied. He 
is doing his duty. I don’t pity him, I admire 
him.” 


A QUESTION OF LOVE. 257 

She expressed herself with an energy which 
again astonished Zoe; but as Jules rejoined 
them just then, they were silent. 

The sun was sinking, and was piercing with 
his long darts the lacework of the beeches on 
the borders of the fields. They thought of 
going back. Already the cows were coming 
slowly home, in a long file, shaking their 
bells, and stretching their necks to seize on 
their way a last green tuft. It was milking 
time, — time, too, to rouse Louis from his 
dreams. But Samuel, in an agony, walked 
silently to the end of the road with his visit- 
ors, holding aloof the last moment, the last 
look. 

They passed under the trees of moun- 
tain-ash, whose scarlet branches hung under 
leaves already curled by the frost ; they came 
to the meadows. It is an autumn luxury to 
be able to walk at will over the short grass, 
with no care for paths or roads. The pale 
flowers of the season, white, faint lilac, or 
faded violet, — the grass of Parnassus, with its 
alabaster cups, the meadow-saflron, so hur- 
ried to catch the last of the sun that it had 
no time to make leaves or stems, tufts of 
dainty eye-bright, bouquets of sombre' green 
strewn with tiny pearls, — were hastening to 
open, and smile with the sorrowful sweetness 
17 


258 A QUESTION OF LOVE. 

of things that are passing away. • At the end 
of the field they said good by to one another, 
somewhat confusedly, and separated. Adri- 
enne, her brother, and Zoe, each with the 
mind filled by one dear image, went on with 
their dreams. Samuel put his aside, and, 
without turning back, set his face toward his 
home and his duty. 












